My spanking stories

[Trollheart]

What the hell, give it a go. This is called "In Loco Parentis: The Camel's Back" and I'll probably have to post it in sections, as it's quite long. Let me know what you think.

In Loco Parentis

The Camel's Back

I: Dead in a Ditch

The ticking of the clock was beginning to get on my nerves, which were pretty shredded as it was. I didn't want to glance at that smoothly mocking plastic face again, but I did: 6 am. What should I do? My anger had cooled down about three hours ago, replaced by a cold, gnawing dread in my heart. As my mother, God rest her soul, used to say, she could be dead in a ditch. I never quite understood why mam always thought that if her daughter got killed she'd be thrown into a ditch, but it was her phrase - dead in a ditch - and it stuck with me, conjuring up garish and terrifying and bleak visions of the location where life had fled my impulsive, careless and selfish sibling. Funnily enough, I never envisioned an actual place: I never saw traffic, an old farmhouse, a huge, stocky telephone pole standing like a dark sentinel over the dump site, humming its quiet tune of electric current while marking the spot, as if to say It wasn't me; I had nothing to do with this. It was just a ditch, unmoored from time and space, a gap in reality, floating like a dark patch of uncertainty. Lonely, cold, distant. Never to be found.

Dead in a ditch.

The idea had always scared me, and when my mam passed away - over twenty years ago now - it was probably fitting that she passed on her fear, her paranoia over her daughter to me, as the elder brother. Oh, it's not like she imparted some great secret to me on her deathbed or anything - in fact, she passed quite serenely and without a word, just literally fell asleep and never woke up - but I took on the responsibility of my younger sister from her hands, no longer capable of protecting her, no longer able to worry about her, and with the responsibility came the chilling fear.

Dead in a ditch.

I think, though I can't remember, that I used to laugh at mam's contentions, at her idea of her daughter dead in a ditch. I wasn't laughing now. Now, as so many times in the past few years, it seemed all too likely, even possible, and the later Nicole stayed out, the easier it became to see her lying in that ubiquitous ditch, mucky water soaking her clothes, her neck twisted at an odd angle, her tongue perhaps lolling out of her mouth where…

Damn it!

I suppose it was time. Five hours late. This couldn't be good. I began dialling, and had just heard the third ring when the sound of a key scratching in the door made me hit the disconnect button. It had to be her: we were the only two who lived here. And of course it was.

Dead in a ditch.

Not this time, thank god.

But from the looks of her, she could easily have just crawled out of one. She inched the door open - I saw her wince as it squeaked on its hinges, as it always did - and cast a furtive look through the crack.

I was up in an instant, my anger, now that the fear and dread had been pushed away, exploding out of me in a hot fury.

"What the hell?"

I was almost white with anger, and she physically flinched back, looked for a second as if she was going to run back out (well, she had not yet really entered, so I suppose technically I should say run without coming in) then something in her seemed to harden and she decided to brazen it out, walking in as if nothing was wrong.

"Hey," she grinned, "Tol - tol' ye notta wait up." I didn't need the evidence of her slurring her words to see she was drunk. She wove unsteadily, more falling than walking in, one red high-heeled pump in her hand, her handbag slung carelessly over one slim shoulder, the zip half open. Her long blonde hair was plastered against her skull, drenched with alcohol-sweat and faintly smelling of smoke, and the top three buttons on her blouse were open (actually, the top two were gone, the third barely hanging on). The lipstick was smeared and with a sudden and rather inconvenient stab of sympathy I noticed the long black trails tracing their way in wobbly lines from her eyes to her chin.

She had been crying.

But I couldn't give in to pity now, not yet. I had anger that, like a sword unsheathed that must taste blood before it can be put away, had to be unleashed.

"Do you know what time it is?" I asked her rhetorically. Well, maybe not rhetorically. She was so far gone that she might actually have no idea how to answer that question. In case this was true, I stabbed a finger at the clock, as the hour hand clicked past the six, the minute hand seeming to say, as it travelled around the disc, don't blame me! I'm just telling you what time it is! It's her fault - what are you pointing at me for?

And the clock was right. It was her fault. She spat out a laugh, put her hand to the side of her face.

"Let's…" she said, throwing a slim arm around my neck, gazing blearily into my eyes, "let's have a drink, just… just you an' me, huh?"

I shook her hand off angrily, and was rather dismayed when her legs buckled and she fell to the floor. By the time I had gathered her up I could already hear her snoring. As I carried her upstairs the smell of booze hit me like a cloud, and I shook my head. One of these days, Nicole was going to hurt herself with her drinking, either by being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the wrong person or people came along, or by destroying her liver. She was a borderline alcoholic - we both knew that - but there was yet time, though not much of it.

As I kicked open the door to her room and laid her on the bed it suddenly struck me how truly beautiful my sister was. Tall, though not so much as to make her look gangly, slim and svelte, the kind of body models kill for, with a beautiful oval face in which were set two shining emeralds that could be so soft when she was sober and so harsh when the demon drink was in control of her. Her lips, though wearing far too much lipstick, were full and luscious, her nose small and upturned, and her lashes were long and lustrous, lending her eyes a mysterious, almost eastern aspect. Her breasts - large but again not overly so - heaved up and down softly as she breathed in her sleep, and her legs, swung up carefully by me after I had managed to get her half on the bed, were long and slim, encased tonight in black nylon held up, I could see, by bright red suspenders clearly visible beneath the tiny skirt she had chosen to go out in.

Some people might look at her and call her a slut, but they'd have had me to deal with. My sister was a good girl, she had just taken a few wrong turns and needed to be set straight. I had been very patient with her since mam passed away, knowing how close they had been and how she had missed her, but tonight I had come to a decision. This was it: this was the penultimate straw. After this, there could be only two alternatives, and she would have to make her choice.

But not now.
In the morning.
For now, let her sleep. Let her perhaps dream of happier days, younger days, days before the tyranny of the bottle had enfolded her in its transparent grip, before her youth had started to crumble before her eyes, and the eyes of those who loved her.
Tomorrow would come soon enough.

I switched off the light and made my weary way to bed, dimly aware that I had only an hour to sleep before it would be time to get up and go to work. With that realisation the anger returned, but it was swallowed quickly as I closed my eyes and night enfolded us both in its embrace.

II: Encore performance

As I had feared, I woke late and had to rush to get to work. Luckily I'm the boss so nobody said anything, though there were a few raised eyebrows when I strolled in three hours late, as I'm very punctual, and I don't suffer lateness in other people. One of the reasons why I was initially so annoyed with Nicole last night. Thinking of her, I hoped she had managed to make it into work herself, as her job there was already hanging by the slimmest of threads. This really bugged me too, as it had been me who had pulled strings to get her the job in the first place, but either despite or because of my relationship with Dale, she refused to take it seriously and constantly used, as she always did, her looks and her bubbly personality to sail as close to the wind as she could. But I knew my old friend's patience was under great strain, and he only kept her on as a favour to me. How long that would last I couldn't tell, but Nicole didn't seem to care.

As I worked I thought about her, and wondered if there would be any change when I got home? It might seem odd, I reflected, brother and sister living in the one house at our age, but even in her mid-twenties Nicole was so feckless that she had failed to save anything even close to the deposit for a house, and what she made at Benson's, though a decent wage, all went into the pockets of barmen, so she had virtually nothing saved. I was hardly about to throw her out, and she knew that, and played on it.

But I was getting tired of being played.

I had decided, by the time I knocked off that evening and drove home, to sit her down and talk to her seriously about her future, outline her options and ask her to consider what she wanted to do with her life. Imagine my surprise when eight o'clock chimed (yes I have an old clock that chimes, what of it?) and no sign of her. I knew Dale shut up at six, and even if by some miracle she had been working overtime, she should still have been home by now. I supposed she could have met whatever male friend she was currently stringing along this month and gone somewhere, so I sighed and set about making my dinner, sat down in front of the TV and resigned myself to a long wait.

It turned out to be a longer wait than I had anticipated. As I watched a sixth re-run of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, and Chris Tarrant asked the question "What is the joke trophy called for a team who comes last in a competition? Is it A) Wooden Fork B) Wooden Knife C) Wooden Cup or D) Wooden Spoon?" dark thoughts were swirling around in my head. She wouldn't dare do it again, would she? After she had seen how angry I had been last night?

She would.

She did.

This time I said to hell with her and went to bed. Sleep didn't come though; the old thoughts were swirling around in my brain and kept me awake till I heard her stumble in at 4 am and, given how long it took her to negotiate the step and fall in the door, I had plenty of time to pull on a dressing gown and head downstairs to confront her. She looked blearily up at me, a stupid smile on her face, on her hands and knees on the floor, her bag having slipped off her shoulder and now hooked around her wrist, where her palm, flat on the carpet, anchored it to the ground. Her hair had fallen into her eyes, and with a great show of amusement she puffed her cheeks out as she blew it out of her way to try to focus on me.

"Hi, bro." She sat down, fingers questing almost blindly for the bag, found it, pulled out a flat bottle and began the intricate and tricky procedure of trying to unscrew the cap. Before she was anywhere close to succeeding, I snatched it from her, ignoring her snarl of protest, and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her to her feet, where she swayed unsteadily.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, looking stupidly at where I held her arm. "That hurts!"
"It'll hurt more in a minute!" I snarled, pulling her bodily across the floor, the toes of her boots scraping along the carpet as she staggered along behind me. I got to the armchair, seated myself and dragged her down with me. She sat down heavily upon me, the seat of her drum-tight skirt pressing down on my crotch. I willed myself not to get hard, but I don't have that kind of willpower.

"I like sitting on your lap," she purred, and wound her arms around my neck. I admit I was shocked. This was my sister! I mean, yes, she is a gorgeous, attractive, sexy woman, and any man would be powerless against her charms, but was she really going to try to seduce her older brother? I determined not to test that one, and pushed her - not hard; I didn't want her hurting herself - down and over, her head now dipping down towards the carpet, her legs rising up above the arm of the chair, and her red skirt directly over my lap. A muffled protest escaped her as she went over and the air was expelled from her lungs in a kind of cross between a sigh and a gasp. I laid the flat of my palm on the seat of her skirt. Christ it was tight! Bodycons, they called them, I believe: body-contoured. Moulds to the shape of the body. And did this one mould to that body!

She might as well have been wearing cling film for all the skirt protected her modesty, the outline of her rolling buttocks clearly defined beneath the silky material, pushing against it as if yearning to be freed. I ran my hand over her bottom beneath the skirt, caressing it, eliciting a low moan from her, muffled by dint of her face being a short distance away from me and being so close to the floor. For a moment I hesitated, thinking maybe I was going too far. Then I realised it was now or never. I had to show her I was serious. She had never taken me seriously, had wound me around her little finger, knowing how I loved her and would do anything for her, but that was about to stop.

It took her by surprise when the first smack landed, and I made sure it was a proper one. Her legs jerked once, her head began to rise but the alcohol in her system discouraged the action, and advised her what might happen if she tried; her stomach queasily backed this assertion up. Her head dropped again, the blonde hair flopping down around it and making a soft pool of gold on the carpet, and I spanked her again. Harder this time; left cheek having been smacked it was time for the right cheek to feel the wrath of my hand. Left cheek, right cheek, left cheek, right cheek. My hand rose and fell like a piston, and in response to this rhythm her legs began to kick more, one of her boots actually flying off with the violence of her reaction. The soft material of her skirt impacted with every smack, and really it was almost as if I spanked her bare backside.

Her moans and groans had become cries of protest, then just cries, as she wriggled and thrashed across my lap, beating her fists ineffectually against the side of the armchair, and inevitably throwing her hand back to try to cover her bottom. I gently but firmly grasped her wrist and held it back, delivering a few harder, faster ones and a small fusillade of blows to her exposed upper thighs as a warning. She didn't heed the warning of course, and as soon as her hand slipped from my grasp it was again trying to impede my progress, with the result that her legs began to take on a shade very similar to her skirt.

She wasn't really crying - I wasn't spanking her that hard, and it was through her skirt, which, though thin, provided some protection for her - but she wailed and growled and cursed me as she struggled to get away, tossing her head from side to side in her anger and frustration. I was about to raise her skirt when I realised it was so tight that I could barely move it without her lifting up, and unlike the girls in the spanking videos I had watched, Nicole was not going to oblige me by helping out. Besides, I suppose I didn't want to humiliate her any further than she had already been, so I delivered a last flurry of blows, ending with six very hard ones to each thigh, and slid her off my lap and gently to the floor.

She glared up at me, from eyes moist with tears not quite shed - I thought she might have been grimly holding them back, determined not to cry in front of her big brother - and furiously massaged her backside. As soon as she could manage it she scrambled to her feet, shot another venomous look at me and then fled from the room, her remaining boot making an uneven clattering sound as she tottered up the stairs. I heard her bedroom door bang, and heaved a great sigh. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't aroused, and it was a few minutes before I could get out of the chair (thinking about gardening or golf or politics always helps) and follow her upstairs.

I paused outside her door. From within, the sounds of sobbing. I decided not to push her any further that night, but my mind was already made up that Nicole would have to get used to a new way of living, a new regime here in the house which I, after all, owned, and which she contributed nothing towards the running of. I won't deny that as I shucked off my dressing gown and climbed back into bed, the sounds of her distress and remorse floating muted through the wall brought a grim smile to my lips. They were the sounds of success.

 

[Trollheart]

III: The Battle of Breakfast Time

The next day was Saturday, so I was home all day, which was just as well as I intended to, if you will forgive the pun, get to the bottom of things over the weekend so that we could start fresh on Monday. Not at all to my surprise, it was well past two in the afternoon when Nicole surfaced from her pit, her natural beauty allowing her to look even then as if she had just glided out of an expensive salon. Other women must hate her, I thought. But that was a two-edged sword which Nicole had wielded with consummate ease and the expertise of a woman well used to manipulation and getting her own way. Like many women, she had a knack of smiling a certain way, or allowing her lower lip to protrude in a pout which could, on command it seemed, begin to tremble as tears were carefully manufactured in her beautiful green eyes, a general marshalling her troops, weapons against which no man could hope to stand.

Usually.

But today my intention was to turn those weapons against her, use her tears to defeat her, blunt and neutralise her favourite attack and leave her defenceless. It was, I knew, the only way. It would be hard, but if it worked, it would surely be worth it.

When she breezed downstairs she was wearing - deliberately I felt - a white t-shirt that barely contained her boobs and allowed them to push forcefully against the legend, written large in black letters, BAD GIRL. She also wore her favourite tight jeans, pants which had raised the frequent remark that she must have been poured into them. She certainly looked a sight to behold, her long blonde hair flowing down her slim back, swinging slightly as she walked - no; sashayed - across the kitchen, then quite intentionally bending right down at the washing machine, all but waving her delectable backside at me, the faded blue denim just about equal to the task of holding her buttocks in. As she bent (and as I'm sure she was quite aware) the lacy frills of her thong peeped at me like a shy neighbour stealing a glance over the wall. Having stolen a long look, I turned back to my newspaper as she spoke.

"I can't find my favourite red knickers: are they in the wash?" She bent further down on pretence of looking in the circular plastic window as the clothes tumbled in their daily dance around the drum of the machine. I swear I heard the seams of her jeans groan. Or maybe it was me. I muttered something suggesting she should wash her own damn knickers. She shrugged, straightened, turned, smiled and yawned, stretching expansively and causing her tits to do a wobbly dance before my eyes. I averted them, but deeper down, something else was taking notes. I crossed my legs to quiet my little friend down. It was not an easy thing to do, but it sort of flattened the erection. For now.

With an insolent look on her face, she took her place at the table, but I was gratified to see her try to hide a wince of pain as her bum came in contact with the wooden chair. She quickly wiped the frown, more one of annoyance than pain, from her pretty face and smiled a winning smile at me. I'd seen it before: it was the one she used when she needed money, or for me to step in and rescue her from some bad situation, which I had been doing most of her adult life. It was the one that had the lads queuing up to date her, the one, no doubt, she had worn as they fought over her, which they quite often did.

She shook cornflakes into a bowl. How the transfer of small golden pieces of corn into a ceramic bowl could be sexy I don't know, but it was undeniably so when she did it. She reached for the milk, poured. I kept my eyes steadfastly locked on my newspaper, hoping she didn't mark the slight tremble in the hands that held it.

"Well?" Her voice was a little strident, clipped, almost cracked in a way, as she spoke. "I'm waiting!"

Without looking out from my paper I asked "Waiting for what?"

"For my apology." I glanced out from behind the paper now, an incredulous look on my face.

"Excuse me?"

Had she been standing, I'm sure her hands would have been on her hips. As it was, she gave me an arrogant toss of the head and speared me with those green chips of ice.

"Are you going to apologise?" It was a challenge, one I rose to.

"For what?" I asked innocently, which I knew would annoy her, as she knew that I knew and so on. Her perfectly-drawn eyebrows converged and she frowned at me, perhaps unsure if I was making fun of her. I was.

"What do you mean for what?" Her ire was fully up now, the colour rising in her cheeks, her lips parted to show perfectly white even teeth. "For spanking me last night!"

"Oh," I said, casually retreating back behind my paper, as if dismissing the subject. "That."

There was a moment of perfect silence. You know the kind of thing: like just before a storm breaks, or a quiet road before a car slams down it at full speed. Or the intake of breath before the trigger is pulled.

"Yes!" she exploded in somewhat impotent rage. "That! You treated me like a little child!" I wasn't looking at her, deliberately taunting her, but I knew her face would be screwed up in anger, flushed too with embarrassment. I chuckled to myself at the private joke: embarrass? I was sure the embers were still smouldering in her ass!

"You acted like one," I shot back casually, "so are you surprised I dealt with you like one?"

That stopped her. She had obviously come down expecting excuses, promises that it would never happen again, explanations, apologies. She was uncertain now which direction to go, indeed which direction this conversation was going to take. Rather than be under her control, as she had assumed it would be, she surely could feel it slipping out of her grip and into uncharted territory.

"You're my brother," she pouted, and I flicked the paper down just in time to see her reach around and massage her backside when she thought I wasn't looking. "You're not my father."

I grunted, returning to my paper. "Fat lot of good that old bastard was!" I snapped, and knew that here, we were in agreement, if only for a moment. Again, it threw her. After a moment of awkward silence, broken only by the sound of her desultorily munching corn flakes, she spoke again, her voice lower, less confident, sulky.

"It's not your place to spank me."

It was almost a plea, a question. I felt it needed an answer. I folded my paper, finally ready to take on the subject of the day, interested that it had been Nicole who had brought it up when I had been considering how to.

"You live here rent free, Nicky," I told her gently but firmly. "You pay nothing towards bills, food or any expenses. You watch the TV I pay for, use the broadband, invite your friends around to eat my food and drink my drink, take the car when you like. You don't contribute, sis," I pointed out the obvious to her, "so the least you can do is give me a little respect."

She flushed, her head dropping almost in a gesture of shame. "I - I…" she began, then softly began to weep. A little shocked, I was reminded of the tears of two nights ago. Not the ones that had come from me spanking her, but the ones that had painted a desolate picture on her pretty face even as she walked - staggered - in the door. I knew Nicole was quite adept at getting around me, and these tears were probably only for show, a device she used often on me to get her own way. But the memory demanded I ask the question.

"Why were you crying on Thursday night?" I asked her without any anger or sternness in my voice. Spanking her was one thing, and indeed new to me - to both of us - but if someone had hurt her…

"Oh, ah, it's… it's nothing." She lifted her eyes, tears sparkling like miniscule diamonds on the tips of her heavily mascara'd eyelashes, and I felt the old love for her come surging back, and with it the need, the imperative of protecting her. She was twenty-four, but to me, ten years older and then some, she was really just a kid.
My kid sister.

"People don't cry over nothing, Nicky," I told her gently. I reached across the table towards her, touched her hand. "If you want to talk about anything…" But she snatched her hand away, irritable and suddenly brazen again.

"I said it's nothing! Why can't you just stay the fuck out of my personal business, Darren?"

A cold hand clutched at my heart; the rebuff stung. But it also hardened my resolve to do what needed to be done.

"Fine," I snapped back. "Have it your own way. But know this: far from apologising for spanking you, you had better realise that I intend that to be only the beginning."

Suddenly, real fear showed in her eyes. That uncertain look again, the idea, which seemed to really terrify her, that her control over me was being eroded away, that I would not just fold and give in, like so many times before.

"Wha- what do you mean?" She held a china teacup in one porcelain hand, her painted nails tapping against the side, making the cup ring like a little tinkling bell.

"I mean, young lady," I told her, rising from the table and standing over her, "that there are going to be changes made in this house, and you can either accept them or…" I faltered. It was hard to spit the words out, but she had to know I was serious. "Or you can pack your bags and leave. Tonight."

She looked at me in dumb amazement. The ultimatum took her so much by surprise that she actually dropped the cup, spilling warm tea over the table which pooled in the centre and began running towards the edge in three or four wide rivers. She jumped back, both to avoid getting dripped on and, I thought, in reaction to my announcement.

"So… so you're… throwing me out?"
The very idea seemed so alien to her that even as she spoke the words her brows were again downturned, frowning as she tried to work out the meaning of what she had just said, as if she had suddenly begun speaking in a language she didn't understand. I shook my head.

"Of course not," I told her. "It doesn't have to come to that, Nicky. You just have to agree to this new, ah, arrangement we're going to be having, and things will be much better, I promise you."

I didn't want to sound like I was pleading, trying to convince her, so I stepped back, taking the opportunity to walk to the counter and pick up a sponge to mop up the spilled tea. As I did so, I was thinking, a little crazily, no sense crying over spilled…

She gave me another uncertain look and, significantly I thought, reached around to her behind again. She was now standing, as was I, so the gesture was a little more effective than previously.

"What… arrangement?" She asked with what sounded like a sense of dread, though I thought I also detected in her voice - what? Interest? Curiosity? Excitement?

"That," I told her, moving to the sink and wringing out the sponge, my back to her, "is something we will discuss later on. We have a lot to talk about, Nicky, and we need to do it before I have to take drastic action."

"Like kicking me out?" It was almost an accusation, and I felt rather than saw her elegant middle finger raised behind my back.

"Like that," I agreed, without turning around. And now the pout.

"But I'm going out tonight!" she wailed, all but stamping her foot. "How long is this going to take?"

"Long enough that you had better cancel your plans, young lady," I told her firmly, deliberately using that form of address so that she could have little doubt where this was going. "I think our future together - or not - is a little more important than seeing your friends for the, what, fifth time this week, is it?"

"Fourth." She was so goddamn beautiful when she pouted!

"I stand corrected. " Again, there was hidden meaning in the words I used, and I hoped she was getting the message. "Fourth time then. But as I say, this is important, so I want you here tonight, understand?"

I thought I misheard, but now I know I didn't. At the time, it gave me such a thrill I almost fell against the sink. She said it under her breath, perhaps sarcastically, but she definitely said it.
"Yes sir."

"What was that?" I turned around, pretending I had not heard. She took the same chance.

"Oh, I said all right, if you insist!" she grated. "But I hate you for making me miss Happy Hour Saturday!"

"Yeah." I tossed the sponge on the drainer, ran my hands under the tap. "And I love you."

She tossed her head as I turned back around. "But you still spanked me!"

"It's because I love you that I did it," I assured her. She was not convinced, flouncing out the door. I watched her bum do its tempting dance, fighting against the denim as she went.

"Love like that," she told me archly, "I can do without, thank you!"

 

[Trollheart]

IV: We Need to Talk

She spent the day in her room - sulking, probably, and whining on the phone to her friends, and I watched the football. As the news began I called up to her, but getting no response I walked up the stairs and knocked on her door. No answer. I knocked again. Nothing. I pressed my ear up against the door; maybe she was watching television in there and couldn't hear me. No sound came to my ears other than the very lowest hum, faintly discernible if you really strained to hear it. Could be a motor or something, maybe her computer? I gave one last knock, and swore that if she had gone out despite what I had said I would make her sorry. Then I pushed down the handle and looked in.

Somewhat to my relief, she was there. She was lying on her stomach on the bed, her legs kicked up in the air like a young girl, her denim-clad bottom swaying from side to side. I realised she must be listening to music, and looking closer now I could just about make out the small black plastic earbuds pushed halfway into her ears and covered by her golden hair. I decided to surprise her.

"OW!" She twisted round, surprised at the sudden smack, pulling one of the buds out of her ear. The tinny voice of some male singer emanated from the loosed bud, someone racking off what sounded like a guitar solo. "What the hell?"

I grinned at her, both at her sudden surprise and, well, just because I loved her, and was glad she was, for now at least, obeying my instructions. I had half-expected to have found she had legged it, and while that would have made me very angry it would also have disappointed me, and probably ended up with her leaving for good. I was glad that we had not yet come to that.

"Don't forget, princess: seven o'clock, downstairs," I reminded her. "Don't be late."

"Or what?" she asked me sweetly, replacing the bud in her ear and turning her back, and her backside, on me. "You'll spank me again?"

"Not a bad idea," I muttered, and she squealed, but did not remove the buds this time (or indeed, turn around) as I delivered a short barrage of medium-strength spanks to the seat of her jeans. For a moment, I swore her hips bucked upwards, as if she was raising her bum for the punishment, but I was sure I was just imagining things. I left her with a cheery wave, which she returned with a middle finger and then moved that hand around to massage her bottom.

With intense amusement, I realised the music in her headphones was The Doors, and Morrison was singing "Come on baby light my fire." Indeed. I wondered if she appreciated the irony?

True to her promise, she appeared at the head of the stairs at seven on the nose, just as the doorbell rang. I answered it to a man in shirt sleeves with a day's growth on his chin and eyes that looked like they hadn't seen much sleep. He had a bad cold too, and was sniffling as he barked "Taxi for Westinghouse, mate?"

I nodded. "Do you mind waiting?" I asked him. "She might be a while."

He looked doubtful, cast a look back to where My Lady's Chariot awaited. The ancient Ford looked as tired as he did; I fervently hoped I would not have to consign my sister to the care of either.

"How long do you think, mate?" he asked, looking at his watch. "Only, I got a job to do over in…"

I held up a hand to forestall him. Well, it wasn't my hand which forestalled him, truth to tell. It was the two brown notes they held. I handed him the hundred euro, which he took with the hesitant wonder of someone who has not eaten for days who is suddenly presented a steak dinner.

"Chances are," I said to him in an aside, so Nicole, coming down the stairs and of course earwigging, could not hear, "Miss Westinghouse won't need your services, but I'll need a little while to talk to her. That should cover your fare and waiting time, shouldn't it?" He nodded, a greedy light in his eyes.

"And if she don't travel?"

"You hang on to the cash," I assured him. "If things don't go well, and she has to leave, what I gave you will still pay for her travel, with enough left over to compensate you for your waiting time. Agreed?"

He touched a finger to his forehead, like one of those old servants touching their cap before the master of the house. "Whatever you say, chief," he agreed. "You'll, ah, you'll let me know though? If she's travelling. Or not."

"Shouldn't be more than a half hour," I told him, slipping the door shut. "I'll come out and let you know."

"Who was that?"

How she could rise from having spent half the day just lying on her bed and with no effort at all, look like some princess out of a story book, constantly amazed me. I briefly considered the word. Princess. It had been a favourite term of endearment I used with her when she was younger. Hadn't used it for years, and I found it odd, not only that I was remembering it now as she appeared, but, I also reminded myself, I had called her that up in her bedroom.

Princess. Somehow, it suited her.

But even princesses needed spanking from time to time.

She wore a red tank top, not as tight as her shirt yesterday but still giving her boobs less than a fighting chance, her slim arms bare and white, two bangles rattling on each wrist. Since she had been told she could not go out she wore soft velvet slippers on her feet - I had my own plans for them later! - and her faded blue jeans could not have been tighter if they had been sprayed on. Her hair had been caught back and tied in a ponytail, which achieved what I would have thought to have been the impossible and made her look even more gorgeous, and her green eyes sparkled with a mixture of amusement, anticipation and, now, uncertainty as the door closed.

"Taxi," I told her simply.

She stopped on the second-to-last stair, confused. "You going out? I thought you wanted to have this talk…" Her voice trailed away; there was almost disappointment in it. I was quick to explain.

"Oh we're going to have the talk, Nicky," I agreed. "That taxi is for you."

She was shocked, her hand flying to her breast. "Me?"

"Yeah," I grinned. "Just in case this doesn't work out."

Her shoulders sagged, the pout made a reappearance. My god, she was beautiful! If she hadn't been my sister…

"So you're serious about me going?" There was a slight whine in her voice which I did not like, but I shrugged.

"I hope it won't come to that, sis, but I wanted you to be in no doubt that this is real. So he's going to wait out there until I either tell him to go, that we've sorted it and you're staying, or I send you to pack your bags and leave."

She let out a deep sigh, passed me (deliberately, I felt, nudging me with her bum) and moved into the sitting room where she flopped down into an armchair, slinging her legs over the side, her head sinking against the back of the chair.
"All right then," she agreed, "let's get this over with."

I joined her, sitting on the chair opposite and facing her, and leaning slightly forward, clasped my hands in front of me. I had rehearsed this speech a dozen times that afternoon and into the evening, the match on the telly barely registering as I strove to put into words what I felt, tried to figure out how best to say what I had to say, tested and discarded many options and, when it came down to it, completely failed to remember any of what I had memorised.

"The first thing I want to say is that you're my sister, I love you and I always will." She shrunk from the hand I extended towards her, instead squirming uncomfortably on the chair.

"My arse says otherwise!" she quipped, though I did notice there was little or any malice in her voice. I thought I saw the tiniest semblance of a grin, a flash of mischief in her eyes. Ignoring the comment, I went on.

"But you have to realise that things have to change, Nicky. I can't go on like this. It really has come to crunch time, and it has to be your decision."

She leaned forward, a look in her eyes I'd seen her use on various ex-boyfriends, and which I felt sure had been also practiced on bank managers, debt collectors and police. I was determined though it would not work on me, not tonight.

"Are things really so bad?" It wasn't quite a question, more a sort of statement, a suggestion that I was making too much of this. I would not be swayed. I leaned back, reached over the side of the chair to where I had placed a flat black folder, and picked it up. Flipping it open, I selected a piece of paper from it and presented it to her. She took it, looked at it, looked at me.

"Remember that?" It was clearly a rhetorical question this time; how could she forget? "I had to bail you out of a credit card bill that ran to - what's the figure there again Nicky?" I knew it of course, but felt I should impress the seriousness of it upon my little sister. She swallowed, coloured, croaked the answer back to me.

"Six - six thousand, four hundred and…"
I snatched the bill back from her before she could finish. She jumped.

"The exact amount isn't important," I told her in a cold voice. "What about this one?" I replaced the bill I had taken back from her with another one. She looked at it, her eyes downcast, and handed it straight back to me. I read from it as I received it back.

"Miss Westinghouse, we regret to inform you that as you were made aware at the time of enrolment, our makeup courses are non-refundable, therefore we cannot return to you the fees already paid, which total one thousand, five hundred and seven euro."

I scowled, returned the letter to the folder, extracted another. "Here's the telephone bill for August," I all but snarled at her, placing another piece of paper on top of it. "And here's that loan you got me to stand guarantor for, which you never paid, and this is another course you never finished, this time for a nail salon, and this…"

"All right!" She threw up her hands in despair. "Enough! I get it! I know I'm a screw-up!" She dropped her face into her hands and from behind her fingers issued the soft sounds of her sobbing. "You're better off without me. Just kick me out, I deserve it."

I was hunkered down beside her, the black folder left on the ground, the bills, piled on her lap, brushed off it and sent tumbling to the carpet too. Gently, I removed her hands from her face, marked the tiny transparent tracks rolling down her face, the red-rimmed eyes.

"You're a screw-up, yes," I agreed, but in a kinder voice, "but you're my sister, and as I said, I love you. I'll always love you. I want to help you. I always have helped you in the past. But we can't go on like this, can we?" Looking up at me, I saw the lost, wondering look in her moist eyes, the tremble of her bottom lip. "We need to look at this from a whole new perspective, and then we can start again and forget all this unpleasantness, yeah?"

Again, she locked eyes with me, those green orbs widening slightly. Pursing her lips, she quickly nodded her head. After a few seconds, she found her voice. "What… what are you proposing?" She asked it with a sort of inner dread, as if she already knew, or had an idea, what I was suggesting. I took her hands in mine, held them tightly. I was gratified at the smile she gave me.

"You and I, princess, need to redefine our relationship," I told her in a gentle but firm voice. "This is my house, and I'm happy to have you live here, but you need to be able to follow the rules."

"Rules?" Again, that half-expectant look in her eyes. I think she knew.

"You need boundaries, Nicole," I told her softly. "You need direction in your life. You can't breeze on through the world as you're doing, and hope everything will somehow end up all right. You're an intelligent girl," I said. "You can do anything you set your mind to. But you're lazy, Nicky. You're happy to drift on without purpose, never planning for the future, never a clue where your life is heading. We need to address that."

I took a deep breath. This was it. Make or break.

"So," I said, hoping the tremble I felt in my throat did not translate into my voice, "from now on, if you want to live here, you're going to be subject to my discipline."

Her eyes flew wide, and she started back in her chair. "Discipline?"

"Discipline, Nicole." I made my voice as strong and authoritative as I could. "It's something you've been sorely lacking, and which I think will help make a better woman of you."

There was silence. Silence which stretched out for what seemed hours, but surely was no more than a minute, if that. The ticking of the clock on the mantle, the soft hum of traffic on the road outside and the low growl of an airliner overhead, destination unknown, were the only sounds in the house. Of course, the loudest noise in my ears was the heavy thumping of my heart.
That mischievous grin again.

"You mean…" She bit her lip fetchingly, dropped her eyes till all I could see were the coated eyelashes. "Spanking?" At the mention of the word, her tongue darted out and circled her lips, leaving a shiny, moist coating on her Rimmel London Brazen Red.

I nodded. "Spanking," I confirmed. "But other punishments too, Nicky."

She flinched, squirmed, looked up from beneath her lashes, a doe peeping out of the forest, unsure whether it was safe or not to emerge. "Like what?"

"You'll see," I promised her. "For right now, all I need to know is, are you in? Are you prepared to accept punishment from me, when you need it, when you have earned it or when I think it necessary?"

She squared her shoulders, the old defiance making a resurgence. "And I can stay here?"

"You can, of course."

"And do what I like?"

"Of course not."

"Then I'll - what?"

She had obviously not got it. She had been expecting a different reply, and the one I gave her confused her. "But…"

"Nicky," I told her, giving her a level stare, "I'm not suggesting you let me spank you just to fulfill some sexual fantasy of mine." (This was, of course, partially untrue, but I was hardly going to admit it to her). "I want you to change, to become a better person, to appreciate and earn your place in this world, and that only comes through sacrifice and, as I said, discipline."

She frowned. "So let me get this clear. You want me to let you spank me AND you want me to change my attitude?"

"The one goes hand in hand with the other," I told her. "Look, the idea is to make you a better woman, to tackle your - well, let's start with your drinking."

She pouted, her eyes flashing angrily. "Don't start about that!" she snapped. "I've already told you so many times I don't have a drinking problem." She folded her arms resolutely, which only had the effect of pushing her tits up more into view.

"Yeah," I drawled, "except when you can't find a drink. Look, the point is that you have flaws - as I do - and we need to work on them."

"Oh wait," she grinned. "Are you going to let me spank you then?"

I shook my head. "Sorry hon: my house, my rules."

She relapsed into a sulk, folding her arms tighter, beginning to curl up into a ball. "Not fair!"

She reacted quickly and with some surprise when I smartly slapped her leg, sitting back up in a hurry.

"It's very fair," I argued. "Don't you remember the bills and final demands and failed investments and everything else in this folder?" I held it up and shook it at her like a barrister producing irrefutable evidence of the crime. "Everything in here is something I had to sort out, something I had to pay for, and now it's only fair that you pay me back."

There was sudden alarm in her doe-like eyes. "But… but I haven't got the money," she stammered, eyeing the black folder as if it were her worst enemy, a nightmare which had followed her into the waking world. "You said… you promised…" She trailed off. I put down the folder.

"It's all right," I assured her. "I'm not asking you to pay back the money. That's done and gone. But surely you agree there should be some recompense, some sort of… other repayment on your part?"

The penny dropped. She sighed, hugging her knees to her.

"You want to spank me," she grumbled. "You want payback and you're going to take it out of my backside, is that it?"

"Sort of," I nodded. "But that's, shall we say, past book-keeping. We will deal with that. However I want to try to pre-empt such things from happening again."

Again, she understood. I knew she was not a dumb girl.

"So you want to spank me in advance?"

"Not quite. I want to show you that there are consequences to your actions, and that by addressing the, um, seat of the problem, we can try to ensure those actions are not repeated."

Like a hedgehog trying to protect itself from its enemy by rolling into a ball, she sunk her head onto her knees, drawing those knees up so tightly I feared - probably hoped, if I'm honest - her jeans would rip. They didn't though. Her voice came out of the ball she had squeezed herself into, sulky but resigned.

"And if I don't agree…?"

I had to be firm. "The taxi's still waiting outside," I reminded her. "I'm sorry, princess, but it's for your own good. I think, somewhere deep down inside you, you know that."

Another silence, then a hesitant "If I agree, no spanking my legs, okay? That really hurt."

I shook my head. "Sorry, Nicole." There was no way I was letting her away with that. "This offer comes with only one form of acceptance: unconditional. You don't, you can't set any limits. If you agree, what happens to you is at my discretion, and you have no say in it."

Her head had still not risen; the quiet, low voice that answered, though there was a weak protest in it, knew it had been defeated. "That's not very fair, is it?"

"Is it fair," I asked her archly, "to have cost me hundreds of thousands of euro over the last five or so years, Nicky?" I tried to sound kind, but my anger was beginning to simmer again.

"Guess not."

"And you never, over the course of that time," I pressed her, "attempted to pay me back, or even apologise for cleaning me out, did you hon?"

She shook her head wordlessly.

"So really, this is more than fair, isn't it?"

Her shoulders shrugged. I didn't appreciate the insolence. I slapped her left thigh hard. She jumped, looked up.

"I asked you a question, young lady!" I snapped. "Isn't it fair?"

Tears were starting in her eyes now, not, I thought, from the sharp sting I had just delivered to her leg, but from the sudden realisation that she had, down the years, used and abused my kindness, and was finally beginning to feel bad about it.

"Yes." Her head went up and down. A watery smile broke out on her lips, the merest ghost; it vanished as quickly as it appeared. "I - I haven't been a very good sister, have I, Dren?"

I was impressed. She seldom used that contraction of my name. Whereas I often shortened hers to Nicky, she never called me Dar, but instead ran the two syllables together, as she had when, as a baby, she had been trying to talk to me, learn my name. Darren. Dren. It was her way of all but reverting to that state, of acknowledging my authority over her, of saying "you're my big brother and I trust you." It went with a very clear-eyed (if moist) stare from her green eyes, a look that spoke its own language.

"You could have been better," I admitted, not wanting to put her down too much. "But we'll change all that, hon, won't we?" She nodded, faster this time. I reached out to take her hand, and this time she didn't pull it away, but gripped it the way she had when we were younger, holding on, squeezing, retaining her lifeline. When we were together, nothing could push us apart.

"So are we agreed then?" I had to know for sure; she could have been putting this on, and once she was in the clear might go back to her old ways. I had to make sure that did not happen, and that she understood it would not. Again she nodded. She sort of fell into my arms as I embraced her.

After a while we parted. Her tears were wet on my cheek, her hair tickling my nose. I released her and she sank back into the chair, but this time did not draw up into a ball, just sat there, looking at me, a slight smile on her lips, the upper teeth biting down on them making her look about ten years younger than she was. While we had hugged, I had listened to the beating of her heart and noted how fast it was, but that was understandable, expected even. What was not expected was the hardness of her nipples as they pressed into my chest. Was she actually excited about this? Did she feel the answering push from my crotch as I held her? I couldn't help that, so I reasoned maybe she couldn't help her arousal either.

"Will I send the taximan away then, Nicole?" She looked up with the most beautiful smile, nodded. Was I imagining it to think it was an eager nod, an impatient one? Probably. "You understand, now, what that means hon?" She nodded again. But I had to be sure. "Tell me, then."

She took a breath, averted her eyes and looked down at her slippers, perhaps - or perhaps not - entertaining the same idea I had had when I had seen her wearing them, that they might be put to another, far more painful use soon. She mumbled something, but I very deliberately reached out, put the back of my finger under her chin and tilted it up.

"Speak clearly, princess," I told her. "Say it for the camera. I need to hear you say it, to have a record of it. I need to know you understand and accept the terms before I tell our friend outside his services will not be needed." The red light on my phone winked at me like a co-conspirator as she looked at me, her face framed in all its beauty, seconds counting up as seconds do, unconcernedly and blindly, carrying out the task of committing her agreement to video.

Clearing her throat, and with no small amount of embarrassment, Nicole declared "I agree to be bound by your rules, and if I don't follow them I understand I will be... spanked." Here her face reddened, as I intended other parts of her would very soon. "I understand and agree I have no say in my… discipline… and will accept whatever you deem to be the, um, punishment at the time."

"Good girl." I thumbed the stop button on the camera, pocketed my phone. I hugged her, and went to the door. "I'll be back in a moment. Things will be better now, you'll see," I told her encouragingly as I stepped outside. A moment later the sound of a car engine moving past and away, and I closed the door.

Putting on my most serious face, I stood over her. She looked like a small frightened bunny. I was sorry for that - I didn't want to be the source of her fear - but it was necessary. She had to take this seriously; there could be no question of this being a lark, or a joke, or something she was just going along with for now. In order to respect me - properly respect me, as her disciplinarian as well as her brother - it actually was important that she be a little afraid of me. I had to show her she would not get around me, wheedle or plead or cry or sulk her way out of her coming punishment, that she had agreed and must stand by that agreement, and I intended to do all in my power to make sure she did.

"All right," I said briskly. "Let's get to it then."
She looked at me in surprise, a lot of horror and fear mingled in there too.

"Now? Right now?"

"No time like the present," I pointed out.

"I suppose," she agreed with a pout. "Might as well get it over with. Will it… will it hurt?"
Her look of appeal almost broke my heart, but there was no point in lying.

"It will, honey, yes. I'm going to make sure it does. It has to," I told her gently. "That's the whole idea. If it doesn't hurt you don't learn anything. If you don't fear it then it won't be any deterrent. You do understand that, don't you?"

"Yeah," she said disconsolately.

"What?" I snapped at her. She jumped, coloured.

"Uh, yes sir," she responded. I was surprised. I had not expected that reaction, and it told me a lot more about my pretty sister than I had previously known, or even guessed, up to then.

"I just prefer you say yes rather than yeah," I told her more gently. "It's more, you know, ladylike. You don't have to call me sir."

She looked at me strangely. I found it hard to read what was in her eyes. "I think," she said, hesitatingly, a little embarrassed perhaps, "I'd prefer to. If it's all right with you." She smiled. "Sir?"

"Sir it is then," I agreed. "Wait there for a moment." I walked into the kitchen, came back with one of the wooden chairs, plonked it down in the centre of the living room, and seated myself. I beckoned her towards me, patting my knee.

"All right, young lady."I smiled grimly. "Come here and let's put the official seal on this arrangement."

 

[Trollheart]

V: Wasted Time

I'll say one thing: I cursed the name of Levi Strauss for the first few minutes of my sister's first proper spanking. It wasn't any real surprise; after all, the immigrant German Jew had made his "work pants" to last, and to be proof against tougher things than the human hand, and while there is something intrinsically attractive about a female bottom in tight denim, spanking it is another matter, let me tell you! It was of course only the dust motes in the air being disturbed, both by the impact of my hand on her behind and her thrusting and jerking her hips in response, but it did give the effect of dust flying off the seat of her faded blue jeans. Nevertheless, despite the reaction I was getting - muffled, indignant cries mostly and a few shouts of pain when my hand travelled towards her sit spot, or further on down to smack the top of her thighs, it was clear that I could not hand spank Nicole for long in those jeans, so after a few minutes I stopped. She relaxed. I told her to stand up. She did.

"Arms up, princess!" I ordered her. And it was an order: now that we had both accepted our roles, we were less brother and sister and more dominant and submissive, almost parent and child, and I expected her to do as she was told, when she was told. To her credit, she did not disappoint me, immediately reaching for the sky, as they used to say in those old cowboy films, and in the process straining her tank top against her heaving and somewhat sweat-stained breasts. For now though, alluring as this sight was, I was not interested. I was looking down, my concentration focused on undoing her belt and then snapping the top button and finally sliding the thick metal zip down, whereupon I rolled the skintight jeans - with some difficulty, it must be admitted - down her hips and about halfway down her legs, where they stuck, unable to go further without considerable effort.

Underneath she wore a delicate pair of ice-blue knickers with very pretty lace picked out around the edges. They, too, would naturally be making the descent to her knees in due course, but right now it was time to pummel their seat. Back over Nicole went at my signal, and down came my crashing hand, impacting the soft silk when it hit, the material sort of bouncing back as my hand rose for another stroke, like someone breathing in and out. Without the protection of her jeans, Nicole was much more receptive to my spanks, and her moans and grunts began to turn into yelps and whimpers, the odd scream. Around the thin fabric (and indeed, through it, for it was nearly transparent) her bottom began to take on a nice rosy hue, like the sun coming up in the morning. My hand rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell, each time coming down that little bit harder, and the first sobs broke from Nicole's lips.

Not wishing to neglect her legs, I peppered these in their turn with smacks, running my spanking hand all the way down to her knees and back up till I again reached her bottom. She bucked and swayed and jumped under my hand, and her cries were now clear and audible, her long legs trying to kick but somewhat restricted by the jeans still halfway down them. The bangles on her wrist jangled, her head tossed wildly, the ponytail, a golden metronome flying from side to side, waved like a field of corn in a gentle summer wind as her head moved, her neck arching up with the heavier spanks and then falling down, taking her hair with it as it fell, only to snap back again as another hard whack caught her on the left buttock, or the right, or across both. As her bottom grew redder, tiny pink pimples appearing on the soft, previously white flesh, I decided it was time to speed up the rhythm, and worked with a will to cover her entire bottom from waist to knees. The rosy hue had by now grown to a bright, angry red with darker spots where I had spanked her particularly hard.

Her sobs and howls had now amalgamated into one long, continuous wail of pain and embarrassment, her hips pistoning up and down and lashing from side to side, as if her bottom were a head shaking in negation. Despite the encumbrance of the jeans, her legs were now working scissor-like, snapping open, closed, kicking up and down (as much as they could move anyway) as her upper legs darkened in shade to match that of her behind. Slipping my fingers in the thin but very tight waistband of her knickers, I could feel how hot my sister's backside was, and as I drew the small scrap of cloth down to her knees, where it met the jeans and no doubt commiserated over the position they were both in, the full beauty of Nicole's bum was revealed to me in such glory that I physically gasped.

Though I had spanked her twice now - once in fury that last night but only over her skirt and once in good humour but again on her jeans - this was the first time in years I had seen my sister's bare bottom. Not since we were kids, I would think, and of course then it had been a lot smaller and I had been not in the least interested. Now, as I caught sight of her backside, not only fully bare but sporting a lovely deep dark red with attendant marks, and thrashing and humping over my knee, Nicole finally, after all these years in the position I had dreamed she would one day be, I was seized by a fierce desire to kiss it. But she was my sister, and that would have been inappropriate - at least, without her permission or agreement. So I instead took in the glorious vista before me, like an art connoisseur appreciating a fine painting.

But there would be time to admire my handiwork later. Right now I had Nicole over my knee, bottom bare and red, but there was a lot of room for improvement. I took a deep breath, raised my arm to shoulder height, and without any further preamble began spanking her as fast and as hard as I could. Up and down her legs I went, faster, harder, she bucking all the time like a wild animal caught in a trap, and indeed, screeching somewhat like one too! Conscious of the fact that this was only the warm-up and that we had a long night to go, I delivered a final (for now) flurry of the very hardest spanks I could to the very centre of her bottom, and then rested my sore hand on her surely much sorer backside.

At the pause, sniffling through her tears, my sister turned and looked back at me, her eyes all puffy and red, black mascara trickling down from the corners, her face red and flushed (though not as red as her bottom) and gasped "Is that it? Am I finished?" I thought I detected a note of disappointment in her voice, perhaps slightly mocking, the sort of thing that scornfully asked is that the best you can do? But I of course knew better, and I think so did she.

"Finished?" I laughed, running my hand up and down her scorched bottom and legs. "You must be joking, princess! We've barely begun!"

In reality though, I knew I had to take a break, if only to rest my hand. By now her bottom was dark crimson, tending to almost purple in some places, and my palm was on fire, to say nothing of the wrist feeling like the joint had broken. I needed to rest, so I told her to get up, which, after a little struggle - always a bit hard for a girl to get up off a guy's knee without stumbling or falling - she did. Her hands immediately shot behind her bottom, fiercely massaging the twin glowing globes. I slapped her hands away, grabbed the wrists, forced her arms up.

"Did I say you could rub, young lady?" I demanded. "Did I?"

She had the grace to drop her eyes to the floor. "No, sir," she muttered through her sobs.

"You rub when I say you can rub," I told her. "Now get into the corner before I put you over my knee again for your insolence! Hands on your head, don't dare look around or even speak. I don't want to hear a peep from you until I tell you it's okay. Do you understand, Nicole?"

She nodded. She was getting it. Without being told to, she left her crumpled jeans around her calves where they were, the knickers resting on top like icing on a cake, and shuffled uncomfortably to the wall, crying freely but not daring to raise her hand to wipe her eyes, her bottom and legs dark red, and placing her hands on top of her golden crown, broke down into a series of bubbling sobs as she faced the wall.

I sat in the easy chair opposite her and admired my work. There really wasn't a white spot to be seen, from her slim waistline right down to her knees, but I knew a simple spanking would soon fade, and I wanted her to remember this, not only when she sat down (or tried to!) but whenever she looked at her backside in the mirror for the next few days at least. Her whole body shook and trembled, and her legs looked particularly wobbly. For one moment I felt like supporting her, even letting her sit down (if she could - I doubt she would have thanked me for that offer!) but then my resolve hardened - along with other things ho ho - and as I watched, her legs steadied a little. She was coping.

If the evidence of my eyes had not confirmed that I had done a passable job administering my first ever real spanking, the sound of my sister's sniffling and sobbing certainly did. Every so often a sob would break into a bubbling wail, and I knew she would have given anything to reach behind and rub her backside, soothe the fire burning there, but she did me proud and kept her hands flat on her head, and never looked around once. Her cries she could not stifle though - nor would I have wanted her to - and I let the sounds of her misery and distress wash over me like a cool refreshing waterfall. This was one young lady who was learning her lesson!

After recording some video evidence for my own later enjoyment, as well as a plethora of pictures, I told her to pull up her knickers and jeans - and took great pleasure in seeing her visibly wince as she eased them up over her hips - and instructed her to fetch her big wooden hairbrush from her bedroom.

She stomped up the stairs, clumped back down and handed me the big Mason Pearson. I had always secretly wondered why she had bought that sort of hairbrush, where most girls prefer something plastic and light, though she clearly had other ideas as to why I wanted it (or was pretending she had), as she gritted "You gonna brush my hair now like mam used to? Think that'll make up for what you just did?"

I grabbed her by the arm, pulling her forward and she found herself again draped over my knee. "Not quite my intention, princess, no," I smiled and without further ado raised the hairbrush and brought it smacking down on her jean-clad bottom.

Now, here I should explain something. I might be coming across as a longtime spanker, and I am - in my dreams. The reality is this: I had never spanked a girl before. The girlfriends I had had never seemed into it and I was a little wary of suggesting it, because of my standing in the community. It would only take some disgruntled ex to sell her story and I could be in trouble. Look, I know who I am. I'm not a celebrity and we're not talking News of the World or the BBC Six O'Clock headlines or anything, but if that information got to certain quarters it could do my business a lot of harm, to say nothing of my personal reputation. So I contented myself, up to now, with videos and stories and books, which is how I knew the proper forms and addresses and all that, but this was my first real experience of administering a proper spanking, and without the added pressure of fearing my secret would be shared. I knew Nicole wouldn't want anyone knowing I was spanking her, and even if she felt that vindictive, she knew about my business and at the heart of it all she's a good person and a great sister, and she would not want to get me into any trouble.

So I had a chance I had never expected. Which was why, this being my first experience of doling out punishment, I was so taken aback (as I'm sure she was, but for other reasons!) by how different spanking with the hairbrush was. For one thing, your hand, while it might get tired raising and bringing the brush down, did not start to sting after a few minutes. For another, the feel and the impact are completely chalk and cheese. When you spank with your hand you tend to sort of mould your palm to the girl's buttocks, cup them as it were. Even if you spank with the flat of your hand, it naturally sort of grabs the flesh, settling on it in a kind of caress after each spank. With the hairbrush, it's far more direct, far more solid, and, no doubt, far more painful.

As well as that, I found to my delight that even through the jeans that had defeated my bare hand, the Mason Pearson made enough of an impression that Nicole was quickly squirming and her tears began afresh long before I told her to rise so I could take her jeans down again. Proper puffs of dust rose this time as the brush did its work, the meaty thwack almost as loud and satisfying as when my hand had spanked her on the bare. With no fears about my hand hurting, I was able to give her fifty good solid whacks before I decided it was time to proceed. She was blubbering freely as I snapped at her to get up.

Her legs were shaking, and for a moment she almost fell. I helped her to her feet and then decided it might be best for her to kneel up on the chair, holding on to the back. I pulled her jeans down, braced my legs so as to get the best balance, and delivered a rapid-fire volley of another fifty to her bare backside. Her knickers had come down with her jeans, and I had decided to leave them down, as they would not be much protection against the brush. How right I was! When I was finished the already-fading redness on her bum had flared back up into darker shades, and angry white splotches where the brush had landed hardest were spread across her cheeks, little dimples raised by the assault on her jeans now grown into larger bumpy red masses. She never stopped crying throughout, but to give her her due, she kept her position, which made me very proud of her.

Just as I was considering giving her another break, my eyes fell on the slippers which were hanging off her feet as she clung on to the chair, and with a grin I removed one while she blubbered and sobbed, head down, lost in her own world of private pain and embarrassment. Not a lot of point in applying this to her jeans, as it was relatively floppy and light, but on her bare - and already throbbing - behind, and with enough force in the strokes she was soon yelping and howling with renewed enthusiasm as I covered the entire area of her backside in fresh explosions of crimson. Not wishing to be overly cruel, I stayed away from her legs this time, but made up for it by pounding the springy slipper up, down, across her bottom. To heighten her embarrassment and shock, I held her bum cheeks open and hammered the slipper as hard as I could against the inside of first the right, then the left globe. That made her squeal, I can tell you!

I could have spanked her all night, but it was important to remember this was not some manufactured spanking doll, created for my pleasure and to sate my desires; this was a living, breathing woman, and more, my sister. I owed it to her to thrash her, yes, as I had promised I would - she had earned that and deserved it, and there would be plenty more in the weeks and months to come - but I had to recognise her limits. For all I knew, this was her first ever spanking and I could not go crazy. Sanity must prevail, and as in all spankings, retribution and punishment must be tempered with mercy and common sense.

So I sent her off to the corner again, she crying bitterly all the while, and when she didn't put her hands on her head but instead squeezed her aching buttocks, I decided I would say nothing. This time. She needed to follow the rules, yes, but that would come in time. First she needed to get used to them, and it might very well be a slow process.

As I watched her sobbing in the corner, her head down and her backside flaming red with patches of white and the beginnings of what would surely become bruises, I asked myself why I had waited so long to do this? So much wasted time, when I could have curbed her wayward behaviour a year, two, three earlier, and she would have been so much the better for it. As would my bank balance, but that was another matter. I left her crying in the corner, with a quiet warning not to to move, and went upstairs.

In the bathroom, I washed my face and stood staring at myself in the mirror, hands splayed on the sink. Using it for support, if I'm honest. I hadn't worked quite so hard in a very long time, though the rewards were certainly worth the effort. I looked quite a sight. My hair was dishevelled, sweat ran down my face and neck and my shirt was so stained with it that it was actually stuck to my skin. I grabbed the bottle of water I always kept there in case I got thirsty in the night (everyone knows you can't or shouldn't drink tap water from the bathroom, right?), downed half of it and then peeled off my shirt, had a quick wash and emptied my bladder. Towelling off, I grabbed a fresh shirt from the hot press, pulling it over my head as I hopped back down the stairs.

I was glad to see that Nicole was still in the corner, her body shaking with sobs. I approached her from behind, lightly touched her bum - she shivered, though whether from the contact or from the pain in her behind I wasn't sure - and I brushed back her hair, kissed her shoulder.

"We're nearly done for tonight, princess," I whispered to her, and again, though it was technically a breach of protocol in these situations, as I knew, I did not punish her for turning around; the grateful smile she gave me through her tears lifted my heart and almost put all thoughts of discipline from my mind.

Almost.

We had one last order of business though, and as I called her forward to stand in front of me, her jeans and knickers pulled back up over her rapidly-swelling bottom, her eyes widened with fright as I loosened my belt and pulled it slowly through the loops. I saw her swallow, her eyes following the progress of the leather band as it moved free of my waist.

"I'm not going to pull your jeans down this time," I assured her, "but I am going to make sure you feel this, even through your jeans. Do you understand, Nicole?"

She nodded, gulped. I directed her to bend over the arm of the sofa, spread her legs wide and push her bottom up as far as she could. I warned her beforehand that I would be using the belt on her legs, too, and that she should try her best to hold position, as if she moved I would have to add extra strokes. She looked back at me over her shoulder, her fine bottom straining against the skintight denim, and promised she would do as she was told.

She soon discovered that being punished with the belt was a whole lot different to getting it from my hand, or even the hairbrush. While the hand could only cover so much at a time, the belt had a far longer reach, and could in fact impact both her buttocks in one stroke. In essence, I suppose, it must have been like several hands striking at once, all clad in leather. It imparted a sting comparable, she later confided to me, to that of the hairbrush, but while that article was solid and unyielding, and also could only strike in one place at a time, the belt covered more ground, so to speak, and so left a more lasting impression. As I had been quite thorough in my thrashing of her, the belt had more than once wrapped around her sides, causing her to really jump and shiver when it hit there. As well as this, since I did not spare her legs, and her sit-spot also got a lot of attention, other more secret parts of her did get accidental strokes. That had not been my intention, but I will admit I didn't completely regret it. She certainly felt it anyway.

She compared it to being repeatedly bitten by a long flat snake, and I made sure this serpent had fangs to sink into the tight denim encasing her behind! By the time I had finished I knew I would again need to change my shirt (and possibly my underwear, if I'm honest!) and she, again to her credit, had only broken position once, when I whipped the belt across that most tender area, just the once, an action I allowed to go without further punishment. The crack of the leather against the denim and her yowling, wailing cries, descending into bubbling, jerking sobs told me I had done a proper job, and she tensed as I told her to drop her jeans.

"It's all right, Nicky," I told her in a gentle voice. "We're finished. I just want to examine the damage."

Reassured, she fumbled with shaking fingers at her belt, got it open, popped the fastenings and slipped the jeans down, taking her knickers down too without being asked, and then pushing her bottom out for my inspection.

It was quite glorious. I knew she'd be sleeping on her tummy tonight. Thick, dark stripes now crossed the dark red of her crimson globes, and traced a kind of pattern on down her legs. Large, dark livid bands at her hips showed where the belt had wrapped around her, and thick red ridges were rising on both her bum cheeks and down her legs. I had not spared her, and those marks would be some time fading. Every time she showered for the next few days, maybe a week even, or every time she used the toilet she would see those marks and more importantly, she would feel them. Hopefully it would make an impression, mentally as it had clearly done physically, but if not she knew now what to expect.

As she pulled her jeans painfully back up, she turned to face me, tears streaming down her face, black mascara and eyeliner giving her the classic "panda eyes", her whole body shaking. I was, therefore, rather surprised when she gave me a nervous, almost shy smile and said "Thank you, sir."

"Uh, you're welcome?"

"It hurts like hell," she confirmed ruefully, rubbing her behind, "but I know you did it because you love me, and I know I deserved it, and I'm glad I can stay and we can hopefully sort out our problems this way in future."

I nodded, enfolding her in my arms. She sank against me, her tears soaking my shirt. I felt terrible, but paradoxically I felt great too. I imagined this must be how people felt when they were high.

"Of course we can, princess." I held her back a little from me, kissed her eyelids. She smiled, a trace of that mischief returning to the wetly shining eyes.

"I'm a real pain in the arse, Dren, aren't I?"

I laughed. "Well, Nicky," I observed, "you certainly have a pain in the arse now!"

She nodded. "And in the legs too," she pointed out, grinning. "You think you can put some cold cream on me, bro?"

"Sure," I nodded, putting my arm around her shoulder as we headed for the stairs. "After all, what are big brothers for?"

 

[Trollheart]

Assuaging the Guilt

I: More than a feeling

You know what they say: college changes people, and I had to admit, as I sat there on the sofa beside my best friend, she did not look the same. Well, of course she looked the same, as beautiful and sexy as ever, with her long dark hair tumbling down her slim shoulders like an inky waterfall on its way down the cliff, bright green eyes like those of a cat framed by thick, mascara'd eyelashes and a soft, inviting mouth that was currently finishing off a toasted ham sandwich. Somehow, even doing something as mundane as sitting in front of the TV and fiddling with the remote could make Daneille look alluring. I had always had a thing for her, but for whatever reason it just had never happened, and at this stage I had accepted that it never would. We had been friends now too long to mess it up; each was comfortable in the company of the other, and any sort of relationship beyond that - had either or both wished it - was something we both knew would only complicate things and must lead to disaster.

So whether by silent assent or just maybe a lack of courage or confidence on my part, we had remained as we were, friends, buddies, pals, and would never be anything else. It had its benefits of course, and I don't mean those kind of benefits, more's the pity! But Danielle, pursued surely by most of the college freshmen at Boston U, was able to relax in my company in a way she could not with other men. I was probably one of the very few, apart from her brother and maybe cousins, who could put his arm around her without her feeling it was an advance. I'm not saying I didn't get hard when I was close to her - Danielle is so pretty and has a figure to die for (and that many men, no doubt, have told her they would do just this for her, however much truth may be in that statement) so you'd have to be made of stone not to be moved when in her presence. But strategically placed cushions cover a multitude, and anyway, she's no fool: I'm sure she knew, but chose to ignore my, um, condition.

I've always been able to be quite honest and forthright with Dani, and vice versa, so it was with some surprise that I noted her reaction when I ribbed her about how she was getting on at Boston U. Grinning that she must have boys queuing up outside her dormitory room (do they have dormitories there, or am I just thinking of the movies?), I wondered aloud how she could be getting any work done at all, and her reply was, well, short. And cold. She snapped at me, which is not really something I'm used to with Dani. She's a lovely, well-mannered, kind and gentle girl and is not one of these who, to quote some singer, is fit and she knows it. I mean, sure, she knows it, but she doesn't flaunt it. She's not one of these who goes around displaying her charms in short skirts and tight little… ah, excuse me a moment.

Anyway, having been taken somewhat aback by the sharpness of her retort, I decided to beat a retreat to the kitchen, where I tipped the dishes into the sink and liberated two more bottles from the prison of the fridge. On returning to the sitting room, I was more than amazed to see that Dani's posture had changed; when I had left, moments ago only, her shoulders were set, her chin lifted in defiance and those green eyes were cold. Now, her shoulders had sagged, so much so in fact that her head was on its way down to her hands. The forced grin on my face fell off like a bungee jumper making his descent, and I moved to her side, all concern, hunkering down and placing the beer bottles on the floor.

"What is it, Dani?" I lifted her chin so that I could see her face, and she looked at me miserably. I thought I saw tiny little drops glistening at the corners of her eyes, and her hands, when I took them gently, were trembling. "Did I say something wrong? I was only kidding. I'm sure you're doing great at college."

Her voice, when it came, was little more than a whisper. "I'm not," she said, as if admitting a terrible secret. "I'm not, Roj." She always called me that. There's no real shortened version of Roger, but she didn't like to use my full name so to her I was always Roj. I always feel it makes me sound like some Indian Maharaja or something, but it's what she wants. "It's just -" and to my intense embarrassment, amazement and dismay, she burst out crying. Unsure what to do, I put my arms around her, like I had done when her dad had passed, two years ago now. My erection, no hypocrite but also not one to stand on ceremony, pushed against my jeans, and gritting my teeth I willed it down, but as every man knows, you can't train your hardon; when it wants to flex, it will flex, and there's nothing you can do about it.

For a while, she sobbed against me, then, as if realising how foolish she was (or, possibly, somewhat unnerved by my hardness pressing into her) she disengaged herself, and wrapped her arms around herself the way women do, hugging herself as if to reassure herself. Or protect herself. Her head sunk down onto her chest (down, boy! Down!) and her black hair fell forward, obscuring most of her face. When she spoke again, it was from this dark tangle that her voice emerged, as if coming out of a cave, or a black jungle, a lone voice in the wilderness, lost, alone, afraid.

Ashamed.

"I'm doing terribly in college, Roj," she admitted, still not looking up at me. "You're - you're right about the boys." I sensed a grin, somewhere there behind that black shroud, but it was a grin of, maybe not disgust, but perhaps disdain? Certainly disappointment. "There are a lot. Too many. You know me." For a moment, her hair parted and I saw the green eyes flash, that sort of merry twinkle that used to drive me mad, the kind of look she would give me when relating her latest conquest, not realising (or perhaps she did) that I could have cheerfully killed, disembowelled and eaten the guy who was getting to have his way with my Danielle. Then the curtain closed over again, and I was listening to the muffled voice.

"Trouble is," she went on, sighing, "I'm missing my classes. Haven't been to a lecture all month. My grades are… well." She stopped for a moment, her lithe shoulders moving up and down in a resigned shrug. "They're not good." She paused again. "Dad would be furious."

This last seemed to set her off, and her body began to shake as she started to cry again. "He worked so hard to put me through college," she wailed, "and look how I'm repaying him. If he was alive now…"

She trailed off, and something about the way she did made me realise, or guess, that she wanted me to ask, so I did.

"If he was alive now?" I prompted. I thought I heard a tiny note of gratitude in her voice, that she was glad that I had picked up on her cue. She sighed, shook her head, the dark wave swinging from side to side, an ebony sea tossing and roiling.

"Well," her voice had dropped almost to a whisper, as if she was afraid someone might be listening. "Let's just say I wouldn't sit for a week."

Silence fell like a curtain between us. I knew, somehow, that this was an important event, that we both had arrived at a crossroads, and that, in order to reach the proper destination, it was vital that I read the signposts carefully. One wrong step, and I could and would be on the wrong road, but if I handled this right, who knew where we might end up?

She was, I could see, waiting. She had, in her mind, made the first move, thrown down the first clue, and it was up to me as not any sort of a sleuth, to decode it and work out the answer to this mystery. Truth to tell, it wasn't that hard to figure out. I had been an aficionado of spanking for most of my life, though in fantasy only. I had never had the guts to ask any of my short-term girlfriends if they were interested, and none of them had ever given me any hint that they might be on for it. Except for Julia, but then she giggled and the moment was lost. Had she been serious? Too late now, as she moved onto other topics, and what might have been never was.

But now, was Danielle, my best friend and - let's be honest here - my first crush and the girl I loved most in the world - offering me a way in? She was another who had never mentioned nor shown any interest in spanking, and we had never discussed it, though I did know that her dad had been in the Marines, and was known as a strict disciplinarian. Whether he carried that though to his home life, to his daughter, I never knew, and I never had the courage to ask. It just seemed, well, private, and after all, I didn't want Dani thinking I was some kind of freak, you know?

I took a deep breath, nudged the metaphorical door open, and peeked inside.

"What do you mean?"

Her voice, when it came, was still muffled but the tears seemed to have dried up, and did I detect a certain challenge in her reply? "Oh, you know," she said, in a way she wanted to sound off-hand but which came across as very much the opposite. "He'd spank me."

To hear my beautiful friend use my favourite word was music to my ears, and a fantasy come true. I knew she was standing there in that metaphorical door, holding it open and beckoning me inside. I took another, deeper breath, did my best to ignore my best friend pushing against the denim of my crotch, and said it.

"Your dad spanked you?"

Her head came up (and yes, other things came up in my case) and she shook her hair back, lifting her legs up and grasping her knees in a way that made it unlikely I was going to be able to stand up any time soon. My own legs, though, were beginning to get pins and needles from being hunkered down, and so I managed to kind of flop onto the sofa beside her.

"Oh sure." She said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if everyone did it. "Regular as clockwork. Every Friday, six o'clock, me and my sister would be called into the sitting room. He'd be there with his belt and his cane. We'd have to tell him all the bad things we had done over the week, and then he'd punish us for them."

Trying my best not to sound more interested than I was, I asked "And, um, well, how did you feel about that?"

She considered the question, as if she had never been asked it before, but also as if her reply was very important. She hugged her knees closer to her, almost curled up in a ball now. "I suppose," she began, and then stopped, unsure. She tried again. "I guess." But that didn't work either. There was a long pause, so I said what I thought she probably wanted me to say, what anyone would say in that situation.

"You must have hated it."

She looked at me strangely. I didn't know what to make of that look. Her voice held a definite edge of uncertainty though. "Suppose so," she agreed, almost sulkily. "Sure hurt. But, you know, at the same time…" And she trailed off again, clearly embarrassed by the qualification. At the same time, what? I almost screamed it at her, but kept myself in check. This was like the most delicate of negotiations ever held: one misstep, one wrong word, a look even, a comment would be all it would take to break the spell and destroy this moment, and take away forever the chance of….

Of what? What was I expecting might happen here? Surely not! Did I think I had suddenly fallen into a spanking movie or something? I had watched enough of them - perhaps too many. Maybe I was beginning to find it hard to separate fact from fantasy, reality from fiction, real life from scripted drama.

All I could think of to say was a non-committal "Yes?" While Roj Junior pounded on the door and screamed to be let out.

She was looking into my eyes when she replied. "I think it helped me." Having admitted this, to her, possibly, dark secret, she again dropped her eyes. Again, I was trying to choose my words very carefully, not betray any hint of my interest, about which she had no knowledge, so I asked

"Helped? How?" I realised my conversation had been reduced to words of one syllable in the last few minutes, but I was afraid to push anything. Besides, what she had said could have been just a wish for simpler times, a desire for comfort, or maybe she was just missing her dad especially badly today. No point jumping to any conclusions. As they say on the best cops shows, more evidence was required before a decision could be reached.

"Well." Her voice was shy now, almost apologetic, as if she was saying something she knew she should not say, especially in front of her male friend. "It's just… I don't know. When dad made me relate my misdeeds and then took me over his knee, yes it hurt and yes I hated it - really hated it." She paused. "At the time." Another, longer pause. Then "But you know, after the pain had faded, and the tears had stopped, I felt… I don't know… better? Clean. Forgiven. It was like all that bad feeling was gone, had been - what's the word? Expiated? Yeah I think that's it. Like, you know, going to confession and having your sins taken away."

I felt I was on less shaky ground here, so I grinned "Yeah, except the priest doesn't spank your bottom!"

In answer, she grinned back, and then, consciously or not, she sort of wriggled her backside on the sofa, as if perhaps in remembrance. "No," she agreed. "That would be some sight, wouldn't it? But dad certainly did." A very long pause, as if this time she was crossing the Rubicon, and knew it. Once these words were out, there could be no ambiguity. "Sometimes I miss it."

"Miss it?" I just had to make sure we were on the same page, a book I had never in my wildest dreams expected we would even both take out of the library, never mind read together! "The - uh - the…?"

There was a reflective smile on her face now, and her eyes were shining. "The spankings. Yeah, I know, sounds weird. I know they hurt, I know at the time I hated them and wished they would stop. I know I cried like a baby. But honestly, these days, with how things are at college, I wish dad was still here, and could give me a good thrashing, set me back on the right road." She sighed, now peeping at me shyly from under those dark eyelashes. "Or if not dad, someone else."

I felt suddenly as if I was going to explode in my pants or have a heart attack on the spot, possibly both, and it was almost an out-of-body experience for me as I watched my lips form words without my intervention, like perhaps a man who talks in his sleep, or a drunk. We're both big fans of The Simpsons, so I couched my reply in a quote from the show I knew she would understand and pick up on.

"Someone else?" I said. "I'm someone else!"

She gave me a very direct look, one not only of understanding but of hope too. "Yes," she agreed. "Yes you are."

Should I push it, I wondered? I pushed it. "I could spank you."

The die was cast, and went bouncing across the green baize of the table, reminding me of that phrase, rolling the bones. Would this turn out to be a misinterpretation on my part, something that would wreck our friendship? The die continued to turn end over end. Six. Four. Two. The spots flashed by in rapid succession as it tumbled, heading towards the end of the table. The crowd held its breath. Somewhere out in the streets someone was playing a jazz tune. My heartbeat was so loud in my ears I thought someone was hitting my head with a hammer. One. Six. Three. Five. The end of the table was in sight. It rose up, huge in my vision, a black, wooden barrier against which the die struck, turned, twirled for a second and fell over on its side, finally at rest.

Six.

"Really? Would you?"

As I opened my mouth to answer, Boston's "More Than a Feeling" exploded out of the air, replacing my words as her cell phone rang.

 

[Trollheart]

II: While you see a chance...

For what must have been about a minute, we both just sat there, like something had suddenly taken place which neither of us could get out heads around. Where was this sound coming from? What did it mean? Dani in particular sat as if frozen, not even looking at the buzzing Samsung as the late Brad Delp warbled on about how many people had come and gone, faces fading as the years went by, and just as Tom Scholz geared up for that iconic solo into the chorus, she snapped out of it and grabbed the phone, thumbing it off without even looking at it. Silence descended, but before either of us could speak those introductory notes chimed in the air again, and it was clear that whoever this was, they weren't going to be put off easily. Like someone coming out of a trance, Danielle answered the call and I, fuming at whoever it was for breaking the mood but unable to say anything, stood up (Little Roj had fallen asleep as the classic rock tune had burbled on) and made a gesture that vaguely said I'll give you some privacy.

As I stood in the kitchen, snapping on the kettle for no other reason than to have something to do, I realised my legs were shaking and my hands had balled up into fists. Sure, whoever had called Danielle was not to blame: how was he, or she, or they to know they had interrupted perhaps the most important conversation the two of us were ever likely to have? But logic takes a backseat in these situations, and all I could do was grit my teeth and repeat, over and over again, "Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!" I hoped she couldn't hear me - unlikely, as she was deep in conversation with my new Most Hated Person in the World - but a part of me also hoped, against hope probably, that the same furious litany was playing over in her mind, even as she talked in what sounded a normal voice. There are moments that come only once, opportunities which, if you miss them, if something happens to stop them, never come again. A few minutes ago, before the song that would forever define one rock band trilled out of Danielle's phone, the stars had been aligned in a way neither of us had ever thought possible. Now, to extend that metaphor slightly, like a solar eclipse that only lasts so long before light again returns to the world, that alignment had shifted, changed and was in danger of being lost forever.

But I could hardly go in there and demand she hang up the phone, could I? For all I knew, her invitation - if it could be seen as such - might have been a moment of weakness, a mistake that, now that she had time to think clearly about it, she regretted and would take the opportunity to ensure I forgot all about. If not, it had to be her who brought it back up; if I did it, it was going to look desperate and just a little creepy. Imagine, I thought in something of a panic, if she decided to pretend she had either never said what she had, or that I had taken her up all wrong! How bad would that make me look? So no: if she didn't talk about it after the most ill-timed phone call since General Rawlinson of the BEF called the lads to wish them good luck the night before the Battle of the Somme, a call intercepted by the Germans and so removing the element of surprise and resulting in one of the bloodiest battles of World War One, then I could not. It would just look, well, wrong.

And the chances of her coming back to the subject, now that she had an out, well, let's just say my hopes were not high. The call seemed to go on for hours, though in reality it could only have been five minutes or so. I heard her say goodbye to whoever it was (I could not have cared less then, nor do I now, who had called her, except to have tracked down and murdered them) and her footsteps behind me as she entered the kitchen. In a voice which tried very hard not to shake - and failed - I did an annoying "Squeaky-voiced Teen" and offered her tea. She shook her head, grinned.

"Sorry about that." For a moment I wasn't sure what she was apologising for. Was she referring back to her request to be spanked? Was she saying "what a fool I was! How embarrassing! Please forget I said anything!" and that would be the end of it? I realised, with a tiny sliver of hope returning, that it was the interruption she was talking about. "Where were we?"

Those three words gave me my chance, but dare I take it? If I reminded her exactly what we had been talking about, would she then shrink back and say Oh Christ no! I didn't mean that! Is that what you thought I meant? How could you? So I did the only thing I could: said nothing and pretended to busy myself with the kettle, boiling it now for what must have been the eighth time. Luckily, I had not picked it up, because her next words would have had me dropping it in amazement and again our conversation would have been cut short as I was rushed to the hospital with third-degree burns.

"Oh yeah. Spanking." She came up behind me, touched me on the shoulder very gently, and yet somehow firmly. In a really bad imitation of Marlon Brando, she said "You made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

Steeling myself, and feeling Little Roj wake up and look blearily around, I turned to face her. God she was - is - beautiful! How was it possible I could be in this position? Was I dreaming? I must be dreaming! And yet, somehow I knew I was awake. I don't have that kind of imagination. Well, I do, but I tend not to remember my dreams, and this was too detailed, too real.

Real.

It was real.

I noticed her face had fallen as I turned. "That, um, that was what you were offering, wasn't it Roj?" She seemed uncertain now, almost as I had been up to this, afraid she had taken me up wrong, embarrassed in case she had - do forgive the bad pun - got the wrong end of the stick. Like a man on a ledge in pursuit of an errant fifty dollar note, and seeing it about to be blown over the edge out of reach forever, I grabbed my chance.

"If that's what you want, Dani, then yes, of course."

And there it was. The conversation, interrupted by her call and thought lost to me, was back on track, and it seemed we were both still riding the same rails. The look she gave me was one of the purest gratitude. I felt like returning it, but just looked at her, drowning in those emerald eyes.

"I don't want you to think I'm joking, Roj." Her face was serious, that expression on it that only I and a few other people close to her know, the look that tells you this is something important she's considering, that she is in dead earnest. "This is very important to me, so if you're just messing with me, fooling around as we used to do, tell me now before we take this any further."

It was a challenge. I rose to it, in more ways than one, the second of which meant I had to grab a dishcloth to cover my crotch, without of course looking like I was grabbing a dishcloth to cover my crotch. I squeaked, then, annoyed at myself for almost falling at the final fence, cleared my throat.

"I'm serious, Dani," I promised her, "if you are."

Her smile could light up the world, and it certainly lit up the small kitchen. "Roj," she told me, "I've never been as serious about anything in my life."

Neither of us knew where to go then. We had made the leap, hand in hand we had jumped across that gap from fantasy to reality, and stood staring at each other on the other side, probably both amazed still to be alive, not to have fallen screaming into the dark abyss of ridicule and embarrassment. We had taken the first, the biggest step. But what now?

"Let's take our tea into the living room," she suggested, "and talk about it."

I watched her delectable - yeah, it's the only word for it, delectable - rear end, tightly encased in white denim, sway and swing in front of me as she led the way. Her phone was poking out of one of the back pockets, its outline clearly defined by the skintight material, and I had an irrational urge to take it out of her pocket and throw it on the ground, smash it, before it could ruin everything by ringing again and breaking the spell.

But I knew this time, we had both made our decision, and even if the roof fell in on us, we'd barely notice it. The first conversation, if you can call it that, was nothing more than floating the idea in the vaguest way. Now we had moved beyond that. There was no ambiguity. Both of us had established that the other was serious, and, despite my amazement and a sense of still not quite believing it, this was going to happen.

 

[Trollheart]

III: Who's your daddy?

Both more relaxed and at the same tense now, I sat down on the armchair facing the sofa. It didn't seem the thing to do to sit beside her at this point, and her reaction told me I had made the right choice. She fiddled with her hair for a few moments, took a gulp of her tea, and then looked at me. "I suppose it all seems a bit strange to you," she observed, "your best friend asking you to spank her?"

I admitted it did. I refrained from telling her how turned on it made me, because you just don't know how that can go. If she thought I was only "helping" her for my own reasons, she might be upset and even feel she had managed to manoeuvre herself into a trap, though I had laid none. Best to keep that aspect out of it for now at least. It was also, I felt, important not to make her feel like she was a freak, so I assured her "No, not really, Dani. I know there are families where corporal punishment still goes on. Didn't happen in my house, but that doesn't mean it didn't in others." I risked an arched eyebrow as I commented "Spare the rod, and all that, I guess. Doesn't seem to have done you any harm, anyway."

I had hoped she would take this as a compliment, and she seemed to. "I'd have to say that spankings - and, um, the rest - made me the person I am today." That tantalising hint that she might have got more than hand spankings - which I had in fairness guessed at anyway, but good to have it confirmed - sent a shiver of delight down my spine and made my heart beat faster. Little Roj approved whole-heartedly, though I urged him to shut the fuck up and not ruin this for me. "When dad used to call us into the living room," she went on, her eyes misty with memories, "I would be in a cold sweat - and I'm sure Ellie was too - and the idea of being put over our father's knee and being spanked like a little girl, at age seventeen, was both horrible and yet somehow comforting." She looked at me strangely, and I felt this was a test, one I must rise to (shut up, Little Roj! Not now!) and pass. "You know what I mean?"

"You felt happy that someone cared enough to discipline you." Look, I had watched enough spanking videos to know the spiel, and yet, it was true, and probably the only reason Mr. Vandershmeer had punished his daughters, unless he too was a closet spanking fan. But then, his own girls? That would have been a little too weird for me. Anyway, from what I knew of Major Thomas Vandershmeer, USMC (ret.), his daughters were his world and he would move heaven and earth to protect them, so I doubted there was any ulterior motive in his disciplining them. Whatever the case, my comment seemed to hit the right chord with the eldest of those two daughters now.

"Exactly!" She fairly beamed at me, sure now, I thought, that she had made the right choice. "If it had been a boyfriend, or some random guy spanking me, I'd just have thought he's doing it to get his jollies, and of course it would inevitably, and probably quite quickly, lead to sex. That would be something far different though. Dad's punishments had, of course, nothing to do with sex - about the furthest thing from sexy you could imagine! He loved us, but when he punished us he did not go in for half measures! Ellie and I would listen to our sobs from each other's room for most of the evening, and compare marks the next morning. It was rare I could sit the next day without wincing. He did not hold back, our dad."

Suddenly, she rose from the sofa, hunkered down beside me (mirroring, in reverse, the way I had been a short while ago with her) and took hold of my hand. Those green cats-eyes stared into mine, holding me as if entranced. "And that's what I want you to promise me, Roj," she said seriously. "If - when," her eyes dropped modestly for a second, an almost childish shyness in them, "you spank me, don't hold anything back. The only way I can get rid of this guilt I've carried around for so long is to cry, and I need that crying to be very real. So you have to spank me until I do. And," she squeezed my hand tightly, "use whatever you need to do that. I say spank me, but dad would use his belt, a wooden spoon, a big thick leather strap, and once even a cane. You can use anything and everything you need to bring me to tears. And Roj?" Here she released my hand and stood up, looking down at me, a goddess above me. A goddess petitioning for a thrashing, which I was more than happy to provide.

"Yes, Dani?" I took the opportunity to drink in her beauty, from the high, jutting breasts that pushed against her top and whose nipples showed through the light fabric, to the slim, slender legs encased in tight denim, the dainty, white hands and the trim waist, leading down to…

"Just because I cry, does not mean you should stop. When dad punished me I would cry for a long long time, whether I was over his knee or bending over the back of a chair, or sometimes kneeling on the sofa. It would go on and on. And throughout it, he would ignore my cries and tears and continue to punish me. I want you to do the same. Sometimes," she admitted, biting her lip in a way that could only be described as fetching, "I cried to try to stop the punishment, but he always knew, and kept on with the job in hand. You need to do that."

My throat was dry. I swallowed, nodded. "But," I asked, with some concern, "how will I know when you've had enough?" She grinned at me, winked.

"Oh, you'll know," she promised. Then something seemed to occur to her, but there was doubt in her eyes, as if this was something she thought might be asking too much. "Would it be weird," she asked me, "if you, you know, pretended to be my dad?"

I had to admit, that did sound a little weird. And yet, it made perfect sense. I knew she was looking to relive the experiences of her adolescence, so perhaps envisioning me as her late father would help her to better achieve that. It was going to feel strange to me, with the lust I had for my friend, to play the role of her concerned parent, but I supposed it might also allow me a certain amount of, let's say plausible deniability. The same way people take refuge in role play, so that they can say it's not them spanking or being spanked, it's the role they're playing, this would let me avoid the perhaps awkward question as to whether or not I was taking advantage of my friend's weakness, playing on her desire and using her for my own purposes.

Which, of course, on one level, I was.

"If you want." I shrugged, as if it was of no moment. But then I had to ask. "What do I do? What do you want me to say? How should I act?"

Her turn to shrug. "Just refer to me as your daughter, tell me how disappointed you are with me - never call me Dani: only you call me that; with him it was always Danielle - and, I guess, maybe talk about the Marines, as he sometimes did. It's not," she admitted, "that terribly important if you can't do it. It just, well, it will make the experience more, well, real for me. Take me back to that time when I had no choice but to take what was coming, knew I deserved it and most importantly how the release of tears would make me feel afterwards."

She scrutinised me with a look, frowning. "Look, if it's too much, if you've changed your mind -"

"No!" The denial was out faster, with more force than I had intended, a kid being told if he didn't feel well that they didn't after all have to go to Disneyland, and I worried that she might pick up on it. What I had said in my mind, though not out loud was Jesus no! Don't take this away from me! Not now, when we're so close! I dialled it back, took the temperature down a notch, spread my hands. "Not at all." I forced a smile. "I'm happy to do it, it it's what you want. Not a problem," I assured her.

She smiled, and tossed her hair. Little Roj roared in frustration. "Okay then I'm going to go upstairs," she said, "and you call me down. Remember, from then on you'll be my father. No breaking of character, no "am I doing this right" and definitely no second thoughts. You know you're going to be hurting me, and while I can't say I want to be hurt, I know it's necessary to allow me achieve the release I need, so don't worry. Try," she suggested, as she made for the door, my eyes drawn irresistibly to that superb backside straining against the white jeans, "to get yourself into the mindset and character of my dad. He loved me, of course, but I frequently disappointed him, and he was a firm believer in discipline as the way to correct bad behaviour. He was not a violent man, but he was no wimp, and he took no nonsense from his daughters. And he knew that we knew that, too."

As she left, I called after her "Do you want to tell me what you're to be punished for?"

Her voice floated back down the hall as she ascended the stairs.

"I'm sure you'll think of something!"

 

[Trollheart]

IV: Some Enchanted Evening

Ten minutes had gone by. My palms were sweaty, my heart was thumping - had I mentioned before that my heart was thumping? My heart was thumping. And a certain pressure was building behind my eyes. What did those old ads for Aspirin say? Headaches are caused by stress? Well, I can think of few situations under which I had felt more stress. I found myself wondering was I supposed to make the next move, or would Danielle? Was she, even now, sitting nervously up in her bedroom awaiting my call, or was she playing the role and brazening it out? Again the question: was she having second thoughts? Now that she was alone, the reality of what she had suggested impacting fully upon her, was she asking herself what she had been thinking, and now ready to call it all off? And if I stayed down here, and she stayed up there, both of us waiting for the other to make the first move, would we both lose our nerve?

I decided to go up the stairs and ask her what she wanted to do, what she wanted me to do. Then I remembered her instruction before she left the living room, not to break character. If this was to work for her, I had to not only fulfil the role her father had played in her life, at least in her discipline, I had to be her father. And if I was indeed her father, and my daughter was upstairs awaiting punishment, what would I do? What would she be dreading, and yet expect?

Standing at the foot of the stairs, I called up in as firm and yet gentle a voice as I could "Danielle! It's Friday! It's five o'clock!"

Luckily for my sanity, she did not call back "And it's Crackerjack!" Instead, I heard her door opening and she appeared on the landing, looking down at me with a face that, if she wasn't truly scared, showed her to be a good actress. I saw her legs shake as she approached the stairs, and without a word she made her way down, holding onto the bannister rail for support, or strength, or perhaps just to reassure herself that this was real. Wondering how her dad would have handled the situation, I found I had not to do much. She walked past me, head down, hands in her pockets now, into the living room. Taking a deep breath, I followed her in and closed the door. She stood there, head bowed like a naughty child, fists thrust deep into the pockets of those supertight jeans (how she had managed to get them in there I don't know) and inspiration struck.

"Get your hands out of your pockets, young lady!" I snapped at her, the sudden growl taking her by surprise and making her look sharply up. It also served to make her quickly remove her hands, which she now put behind her back "We've been here too many times for you not to know the drill!" I was beginning to get into the role now, and thought I saw a tiny smile flicker in her eyes before it vanished, leaving no trace. "Come here!" I reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, not roughly, but with a grip she couldn't easily break, not that she tried. I led her to the sofa and, still unable to believe my luck, pulled her across my lap. The weight of her body on mine took me slightly by surprise: I had seen many videos but this was the first time I would be actually spanking a woman, and it was a new experience. The heat of her, too; the smell of her perfume, her own womanly musk, the brief aroma of her hair as she settled across my lap, all of these things impressed themselves upon me as things I knew I would remember for a very long time.

But that was for later. Now, there was work to be done.

I placed my hand on her buttocks, feeling them pushing, almost arching up against the drum-tight fabric, and for a few moments I allowed myself to enjoy the sheer pleasure of feeling Dani's arse. I placed one hand in the small of her back, lifted the other and brought it cracking down upon her right buttock. The sharp report, flesh against denim, was like a gunshot in my ears, and she moved slightly, but other than that, it did not seem to have any effect. I knew from the videos that hand spanking on jeans was never terribly effective and seldom if ever produced any real pain for the spankee, but even so, there was something really erotic about smacking the denim-clad backside of my best friend, and I resolved to give it my best shot. My next target was of course her left cheek, then her right, then left, and occasionally I would strike across both. As I got into the rhythm and the spanks got harder she began to moan slightly and wriggled on my lap, but not in an attempt to get away or to avoid the blows. It was almost more as if she was just settling herself, getting comfortable.

My hand rose and fell and the sounds echoed across the room, so loud to me that I was sure anyone passing by in the street outside must hear, though I knew the walls were thick enough and the road that ran past Dani's street was always busy with traffic. As if to confirm this, the wailing siren of an ambulance rose and fell as it passed by outside, heading to or from some emergency. I grinned to myself: it would be the Fire Brigade Dani would need soon enough, not the ambulance service! There was, of course, no possible chance of giving her what she needed, had requested, with just hand spanking; Dani would not cry that easily. And so in due course I stopped and told her to get up. The release of the weight on my lap revealed to her how Little Roj had risen to the occasion, having been, as Queen and Bowie had once remarked, under pressure, and she licked her lips as she popped the buttons on her jeans and tugged the zip down. The pants were so tight that she had to wriggle and twist to get them down, and even then she could only manage to get them just below her knees.

For a moment I sat there, staring at her, my best friend, Danielle Vandershmeer, 22 years old and with her jeans down around her knees, her wispy little green panties the same colour as her eyes, and all that was between me and her modesty. Then I pointed to my lap and over she went again, sinking down and into my lap as if she belonged there. The spanks were not that much harder than on her jeans, but without the denim to protect her behind they must have hurt much more. She began to twist and writhe a little, and dark red splotches grew to cover the pink ones already put there by my hand previously. She began to let out little cries of "Oh! Oh!" but she was clearly a very long way from crying at this point. To her credit, she never once put her hand behind her, even when I hit her with a rapid-fire fusillade of spanks that travelled up and down her smooth, lithe legs and made her kick and jump.

I found it made a huge difference to spank her on her panties, not only the effect it had on her, but I was able to more easily judge what damage I was doing, could see spots I had missed and ones where the pink had not yet turned red, or the red was not quite dark enough. I continued to spank her and did not spare any effort, my own hand beginning to throb and sting after what might have been five or ten minutes, but felt like an hour. Every so often I would stop and allow her to rest, which also gave me the chance to run my hand over her soft, now very hot and sore bottom, give it a rub which she seemed to appreciate. I won't lie: I was tempted, as her cheeks lay spread in front of me, but I was playing the role of her father, and any sort of sexual interference just seemed like it would be the wrong thing to do; it would not be what she wanted, and certainly would surely not be anything Major Vandershmeer had ever done himself. The idea was to make this, as closely as possible, a re-enactment of the punishments of her younger days, meted out by her father, and fingering her or even going anywhere near her pussy would break that fantasy. So I resisted the temptation. Besides, it may not have been what she wanted, and I wasn't entitled to just do what I liked with her.

During the pauses, short as they were, I must admit she seemed almost impatient to get on with the spanking, and relieved when it started up again. For my part, I discovered that the videos never told you how tiring it gets, spanking a girl. You kind of have to take a break as much for yourself as for her. I could feel sweat running down my back and knew my shirt was stuck to me, and that I probably stank of perspiration, but hell, it was hard work! Enjoyable, undoubtedly, but hard. In, um, every way. Dani's panties were those sort which, while not actually see-through, were not what you'd call very solid, and as I spanked her it was easy to see the redness blossoming beneath the fabric. But of course, a proper spanking must be given on the bare, and while part of me wondered what she would do when I went to take them down, would I encounter resistance, would she reach back and try to hold them up, I was more than pleasantly surprised as she obligingly lifted slightly to allow me to draw the knickers down her legs, where I left them on top of her white jeans.

Now fully exposed, her bottom was a mass of crimson with darker red patches tending towards the purple, and while I knew this was just the preliminary, I wondered if I was going too hard? Was this too much, and was she regretting asking me now? Had she, perhaps, forgotten how much spankings hurt, and now wished she had never mentioned it? As these thoughts went through her mind, she gave me my answer, in a very clever and subtle way. As I smacked my hand down hard on her left cheek she let out a yelp and snapped "FUCK! That hurts!" I knew that she would never speak that way in her father's presence, nor would he have allowed it, so my response was easy.

Peppering her from hips to knees with hard, fast spanks I snarled "DON'T - YOU - USE- THAT- FOUL - LANG - UAGE - HERE - MISSY!" punctuating each word with a volley of spanks. That had the desired effect, as she began to wail (though nowhere near tears yet) and apologise, admitting she was a bad girl. I shut up then, and concentrated on covering every inch of her with hard smacks and was rewarded by the sight of her hot, red behind bouncing in front of me like a sun which could not make up its mind whether to rise or set. Her head moved from side to side, her long dark hair slashing left and right like black wings. Her legs, trapped by the jeans and knickers at her knees, tried to kick but weren't able to move much at all. I continued to spank her, but my hand was stinging, my arm was sore and I needed a rest. I knew there was no way Danielle would cry from this kind of punishment, and I think she knew it too. Harsher measures would be required. I told her to get up, and was gratified to see that, though it must have been her first instinct to do so, she resisted rubbing her bottom, just stood there before me on shaky legs, knickers and jeans tangled at her knees, eyes downcast but in them no recrimination or blame, and no resentment.

The next part was a risk for me, I knew. We had not discussed the actual nuts and bolts of the thing, for obvious reasons. Now, I thought I knew what was needed, but whether she would go along with it, or whether it would be a bridge too far, I would only know once I had uttered the words. Either she would look at me in shock, shake her head and drag her jeans and knickers back up and storm out, or I had guessed right.

Time once again to roll those dice, and hope to avoid snake eyes.

 

[spankoPhil]

Did this continue somewhere else?