I have so fart received six entries and have decid­ed to wait until I have 10 to make the final deci­sion so its still time to write your story.

Miss Pren­der­gast and I will then choose the win­ner together.

Three Accounts

(Edit­ed by Verity)

From Miss Svenson

The café at The Vic­to­ria and Albert Muse­um a few weeks ago – that’s where she found us. We were sit­ting out by the water fea­ture, Miss Pren­der­gast and I, in the vast court­yard. Being a balmy March the ear­ly after­noon sun split our table diag­o­nal­ly across. This beau­ti­ful inner core is a thor­ough­ly con­ve­nient space for our week­ly catch-up; for me because the rear stair­case of The V & A takes one right into The Nation­al Art Library – that day I’d been gath­er­ing more infor­ma­tion on Goya’s dark peri­od (well, even dark­er than usu­al peri­od) for my dis­ser­ta­tion, I think – and for Miss Pren­der­gast because this cor­ner of Lon­don is clut­tered with the inde­pen­dent bou­tiques and book­shops she adores.

 

Miss Pren­der­gast was telling me in hushed tones – not that hushed; it’s thrilling some­times to feel we may be over­heard – about how she was long­ing to deal with a trainee man­ag­er at her branch of Bar­clays: “Go to Inter­view Room Three, make sure the blinds are closed, remove your jack­et, your shoes, your trousers and pants and wait for me there! And when I’m ready I’m going to bend you over and give you such a smacked bot­tom that you’ll …“

 

We’d been only semi-aware of the vague­ly famil­iar girl at the next table, but on the words “smacked bot­tom” her papers went fly­ing in all direc­tions. Fanned dense­ly writ­ten sides of A4. She blames the wind, freak and instan­ta­neous, but Miss Pren­der­gast is adamant that all mishap would have been avoid­ed had her atten­tion been on her own table rather than ours. She was almost lift­ing her own bot­tom off the seat to catch our words appar­ent­ly. A vol­ley of urgent squeaks and her des­per­ate lunges between the tables prompt­ed a few of us to join her in the chase. I know how I’d feel if my hours of hard work were escap­ing into the skies above South Kens­ing­ton. All notes gath­ered togeth­er, per­haps our mater­nal instincts took over. Well, the sweet­ly round-faced lamb was stand­ing there, her low­er lip trem­bling, on the verge. Miss Pren­der­gast has­tened off to get her a restora­tive white wine, and a glass each for us. At my insis­tence the girl decamped to our table, so I helped her pack her two lumpy cloth bags, one pro­claim­ing in colour­ful let­ters I’ve got ART. It turned out I did recog­nise her. She attends one of the same class­es I do, Expres­sion­ist to Abstract, and also finds the lec­tur­er a com­plete mys­tery. As easy to fol­low, I sug­gest­ed, as the direc­tions for flat-pack fur­ni­ture – and I’m Scan­dana­vian! She seemed to like that one, and her gig­gles were infectious.

 

Miss Pren­der­gast, apol­o­gis­ing for the long queue, arrived as the young lady, Ver­i­ty, and I were chuck­ling over one of my DIY dis­as­ters. Well, not so young, though – thir­ty-one. Sin­gle, stay­ing with a friend in Finch­ley, miss­ing her horse in Scot­land, and hold­ing a ten­ta­tive job offer from one of the East End gal­leries should she get a First. The chat­ter flowed cheer­ful­ly between us and ate up the time.

 

Just as Miss Pren­der­gast fin­ished the last of the olives and I was con­tem­plat­ing anoth­er hour or two in the Library, Ver­i­ty gath­ered her courage. Her voice dipped and fal­tered, giv­ing away her attempt to sound casu­al: “I’m not being nosey but was that, er, a sto­ry? Or for real? About” (a cracked cough) “the smacked bot­tom? You know, smack­ing that man’s bottom?”

From Miss Prendergast

 

It was my idea to ask her to sign an agree­ment. Hard­ly a legal doc­u­ment, and we wouldn’t want it to be, but it made the process more real. Drew it out delec­tably:  I, Ver­i­ty Brook­er, rescind com­plete respon­si­bil­i­ty to Miss Sven­son and Miss Pren­der­gast, for a full peri­od of three hours, on Sat­ur­day 5^th May, to imple­ment any cor­rec­tion­al mea­sures over my per­son as they see fit. And so on.

 

Team­ing up with Elsa Sven­son has opened my eyes, in so many ways. Not only is she fast becom­ing one of my clos­est friends but our adven­tures togeth­er leave me eager. Eager for more of some­thing I had no idea was miss­ing. I was shy at first, a touch embar­rassed to be in the room while she was deal­ing with a male vis­i­tor. One of her most reg­u­lar guests is a scruffy oaf named Pip­kin – hmmm – who seems to be able to absorb spank­ing and tawsing of indus­tri­al quan­ti­ties. Just before his third vis­it with­in the space of a month Elsa had hint­ed that she’d be might­i­ly grate­ful if I could take over for a lit­tle while, just with the hand-spank­ing, to let her action hand recov­er. I was unsure; would I hurt Pip­kin, in the wrong way, or, worse, not hurt him? Would he see straight through me? Miss Sven­son came straight back with the asser­tion that I wouldn’t know until I tried and that the object of the game wasn’t to win a BAFTA. But after the first dozen or so uncer­tain slaps, once I was into my stride, the zone as Elsa calls it, I felt like a nat­ur­al. And I didn’t want to give him back, let him off my lap. Miss Sven­son reck­oned she’d nev­er seen the naughty toad squirm as much, to the extent that at one point she’d had to step to the side of the chair and clamp his slen­der legs firm­ly between hers.

 

I’d asked Elsa a cou­ple of times whether any girls num­bered among her clients. No, well, rarely. So I wasn’t hold­ing my breath – until Ver­i­ty land­ed in our laps. Over our laps.

 

The per­son­able, unlucky-in-love and well-round­ed Ver­i­ty. Not quite over­weight but at just five foot four her gen­er­ous poundage can’t help but make for a full bosom and a pen­du­lous bot­tom. The kind of bot­tom that sur­pris­es every time she man­ages to coax and squeeze it in to her tight frayed jeans. And almost as entic­ing, a light­ly freck­led face and fair hair that fights, against its boss’s wish­es, to form a fringe. There’s def­i­nite­ly some­thing about Ver­i­ty; cute­ness, yes, but enthu­si­asm too. Not pushy — enough mod­esty — but a qui­et­ly deter­mined grab­ber of life.

 

The first cou­ple of chats we had, the three of us, after the time her essay notes had tak­en flight felt real cat and mouse stuff. Elsa was con­vinced that this young lady would be beg­ging at some point to know more, and beg­ging again after that to have her bot­tom smacked. I wasn’t so sure but she made me promise not to raise the top­ic. Ver­i­ty must come to us, cross the line on her own. And, you’ve guessed; Miss Sven­son one, Miss Pren­der­gast nil. After wan­der­ing through all sorts of top­ics, even tak­ing in hottest boy­bands (I still say The Bay City Rollers though I was shout­ed down), Ver­i­ty had nowhere else to hide. Silence. Fum­bling. Look­ing towards each of us in turn. Then,

 

“So – oh, I know what I was going to ask you. You know you said that, er, what was it? . . that you’d actu­al­ly spanked peo­ple? . . you weren’t mean­ing as a sort of fan­ta­sy, in their heads? Well, your heads? But actu­al­ly for real?”

 

“Y‑e-ssss?” Elsa matched the drawn-out word with a quizzi­cal twin­kle in her eye.

 

“Um, well, what’s it like then?”

 

“How do you mean?”, feign­ing slight surprise.

 

“No, no, sor­ry, not to do it I mean . . I mean, well, to be spanked?”

 

I rel­ished a mis­tress at the height of her craft.

 

“Ver­i­ty … are you try­ing to tell me that you have nev­er, in your life, had your bot­tom smacked?”

 

“Sor­ry. No! Well, yes . . No – near­ly. But not, no. Not smacked.”

 

Pro­fes­sion­al inter­view­ers will tell you that with the right ques­tion­ing you can lead a can­di­date any­where, tap the deep­est streams of hon­esty. With ner­vous gig­gles and a cou­ple of false starts Ver­i­ty released a trick­le of infor­ma­tion and ideas. Her inter­est in spank­ing wasn’t a new thing to her. Soon a riv­er, then a flood. As with many peo­ple per­haps it had been with her all her life. Cer­tain­ly from the age of sev­en when the ‘near­ly’ had happened.

 

She’d been cheeky to her teacher, Miss Ter­ry – that was very cred­i­ble – and had been asked to wait behind while the rest of the class went out to play. By chance anoth­er teacher, a Mrs Jones, had walked in to col­lect some books. The dia­logue between the two teach­ers sound­ed more in keep­ing with a cou­ple of pan­tomime dames; vamp­ing it up, ask­ing each oth­er repeat­ed­ly if there was any way on earth one might cure pupils of cheek.

 

“I know!” exclaimed Miss Ter­ry, who was perched on the front rim of her desk.

 

With­out warn­ing her two strong but gen­tle hands had con­nect­ed with Verity’s waist, scooped her bod­i­ly into the air and deposit­ed her over the broad lap wait­ing for her. And by all accounts Miss Terry’s lap was broad.

 

“Are you think­ing what I’m think­ing Mrs Jones?”

 

“I do believe I am Miss Ter­ry. But do car­ry on, please, don’t let me stop your train of thought.”

 

“Well, I’m think­ing to myself that this is exact­ly the sort of girl that might ben­e­fit from a smacked bottom.”

 

“That’s uncan­ny. Just what I was think­ing Miss Terry!”

 

But to Verity’s, now aching, regret she nev­er found out whether or not Miss Ter­ry intend­ed to tie action to her words. Shock and a cock­tail of oth­er emo­tions had over­whelmed. Tears coursed her cheeks unchecked and there was an urgent knot­ting sen­sa­tion in her stom­ach. To raise her bot­tom, Miss Terry’s warm hand had slipped effort­less­ly under Verity’s tum­my, cup­ping and lift­ing at the same time. Ter­ri­fied but­ter­flies strain­ing inside her. Tum­bling around each oth­er. Then, invol­un­tar­i­ly, as she gave in, fierce embar­rass­ment. Much more shame­ful than the tears at the tips of her nose and chin. She real­ly had wet herself.

 

She was imme­di­ate­ly returned to ground lev­el, con­soled and led to the PE store by Mrs Jones to be left with some fresh pants – hor­ri­ble bag­gy ones –

and deeply con­fused pangs for what might have been.

 

And here we are, Ver­i­ty and I, on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, steam­ing mugs of cof­fee in our hands, and the signed agree­ment to one side, wait­ing for Miss Sven­son to enter.

 

From Ver­i­ty

OMG, this is unre­al. I know I’m here, bod­i­ly, in Miss Svenson’s study, but my mind is strug­gling with the idea. My legs car­ried me on to the 8.33 at Lon­don Bridge and then walked me round and round Penge so that I wasn’t ear­ly. So my body is respon­si­ble for this sit­u­a­tion is it?

 

Miss Pren­der­gast seems to under­stand why I’m find­ing small talk unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly dif­fi­cult and is doing her best to relax me with her friend­ly ques­tion­ing. My eyes are mov­ing alter­nate­ly between her and the brass door han­dle, expect­ing it to turn. Now. No, per­haps now.

 

I’ve just missed it because the door has opened and closed and Miss Sven­son is in the room with us. She’s smiling.

 

“Ver­i­ty! Good morn­ing. How love­ly – you’re wear­ing what we sug­gest­ed. I’m pleased.”

 

If you’re won­der­ing, a pale pink blouse, a pleat­ed skirt (Miss Sven­son had said black or navy, but char­coal is all I have in a fuller style), white socks – yuck! – and flat-soled dark shoes. My hair’s in two bunch­es which Miss Pren­der­gast helped me with when I arrived. I was impressed she could do it with­out tak­ing off her black gloves.

 

“Right. Maybe you’d be kind enough to fetch my chair for me, and place it in

front of the bureau, just here.”

 

Miss Sven­son, just to the side of her ele­gant kid­ney-shaped desk, is point­ing to the cen­tre of the car­pet. My body – my body again – is leap­ing to atten­tion, swing­ing my chair round, back legs first, towards the mid­dle of the room. Miss Prendergast’s hand is check­ing my arm, though, caus­ing the chair to lurch.

 

“No Ver­i­ty. Miss Sven­son specif­i­cal­ly said her chair. That’s your chair. Dear oh dear.”

 

This seems to prompt a flick­er of amuse­ment between the two friends. I’m apol­o­gis­ing and slow­ing down. Now care­ful­ly edg­ing round. A cou­ple of steady­ing breaths. Then guid­ing the chair, gin­ger­ly, to avoid the radi­a­tor and the obsta­cles, till it comes to rest on the pre­cise spot.

 

“Thank you, much better.”

 

Seat­ed, Miss Svenson’s eye­line is below mine. I’m being moved clos­er, with a fin­ger­tip pres­sure on my right wrist. We bump light­ly as I reach her but this is obvi­ous­ly where she wants me, stand­ing, my thigh rest­ing imper­cep­ti­bly against hers. Through the taut­ness of her skirt it declares itself a warm but unyield­ing thigh.

 

“Now, Ver­i­ty, so that there are no sur­pris­es I’m going to tell you what’s going to hap­pen to you today.”

 

Her soft voice has a sing-song quality.

 

“When I’m ready – and only when I’m ready – I’m going to put you across my knee. Here.”

 

With the back of her hand, a dis­crete glide, she’s indi­cat­ing her tidy lap. Wowee – cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment for dummies.

 

“And then I’m going to spank you, with my hand. And I’m going to keep spank­ing you. For as long as I feel like it. And I’m in the mood for it to be long, oh yes! . . This is what we call the warm­ing-up. Because then I shall ask Miss Pren­der­gast to undress you – take away the skirt and pull down the under­wear. And I shall smack your bare bot­tom. Real­ly smack it.”

 

There’s a teas­ing breeze, pos­si­bly from the direc­tion of the win­dow, on the back of my leg. A feath­er cool­ness, now behind my upper thigh, now play­ing over the sur­face of my bot­tom. But this breeze has fin­gers because I can feel them solic­i­tous­ly adjust­ing the line the elas­tic of my panties forms at one leg, just below my cheek. Her touch is the light­est, but utter­ly controlling.

 

“We’ll give you plen­ty of lit­tle breaks – don’t you wor­ry. Time to recov­er yourself.”

 

I’m look­ing into her face for a sign but have to turn away. Her words bub­ble on, hyp­not­i­cal­ly, and I’m con­cen­trat­ing on the beau­ti­ful line of pearls around her neck. Miss Pren­der­gast is lean­ing for­ward in her seat, as though she wants to miss noth­ing. Her expres­sion is focused.

 

My wrist is being tak­en, and is lead­ing me for­ward again. This time the tra­jec­to­ry is plac­ing my nose inch­es from the car­pet. I feel my feet brac­ing, the oth­er side of Miss Sven­son and it dawns on me that my bot­tom, angled, is the high­est point of me. Alone and vul­ner­a­ble in the air.

 

The smacks are mea­sured, part of a pat­tern, but each one has its own char­ac­ter almost. Occa­sion­al­ly one doesn’t con­nect so square­ly and is more of a thud or a slip, a wast­ed shot. Most are any­thing but wast­ed, though, and every ten smacks or so one real­ly pen­e­trates my defences and makes me gasp with its inten­si­ty. They progress, three on one cheek, three on the oth­er. Sets of thir­ty – count­ing helps me bear them a bit – inter­spersed with sharp angry vol­leys, unpre­dictable, a dozen or so wal­lops deliv­ered hard and fast to any point of my bot­tom that gets in the way as I squirm to avoid them.

 

Then more sets, and more, car­ry me on.

 

I’m not sure I can take much more.  My knick­ers, stretched to break­ing, con­nect my knees at ungain­ly angles – like a lig­a­ture, in pow­der blue. One shoe has come off and my white-socked foot is mak­ing jerky curls in the air to the reg­u­lar thwack of the leather-soled slip­per. My poor bot­tom. It’s a fleshy pres­sure pad, draw­ing the heat relent­less­ly in to a tight core. Looks-wise – I’ve been allowed to study it when Miss Pren­der­gast has tak­en me over to the mir­ror – it’s a cush­ion-shaped patch­work of grad­ed reds and pinks. They spread all over and round to the sides.

 

The pain is many-lay­ered I’m real­is­ing. The imme­di­ate bursts soon dis­si­pate but they stoke a fire below which pul­sates; at the deep­est lev­el it has a com­pul­sive edge. And in between, oth­er heats, some nag­ging, some urgent.

 

And the flur­ry is stop­ping. Miss Svenson’s hands are mas­sag­ing again, over the hard­er areas of skin. Light­ly at first and then insis­tent­ly, prepar­ing me for yet more perhaps.

 

“She’s doing ever so well, Miss Sven­son, don’t you think?”

 

“She cer­tain­ly is Miss Pren­der­gast. Wrig­gles a bit – and sounds a bit like a ten­nis play­er– but, yes, doing very well.”

 

“Do you think we should try her with what we do to the big boys some­times? I’ll sup­port her if you like … ”

 

I’m being helped up by Miss Pren­der­gast and turned to face the book­shelves. The silence itself is cool­ing before I hear Miss Sven­son qui­et­ly open­ing a cup­board the oth­er side of the study. The chink and bump of a large hol­low recep­ta­cle being moved. Light knocks from inside it, wood­en almost.

 

With­out warn­ing Miss Prendergast’s deft fin­gers are undo­ing the fas­ten­ings of my blouse. Begin­ning with the one above my cleav­age, down to the last, below my bel­ly button.

 

“Thank you Ver­i­ty, very help­ful”; uncon­scious­ly I’m angling my right shoul­der for her. And the blouse is being fold­ed square­ly and placed on the chair my skirt rests on. I’m stand­ing in front of her now in only bra, socks and one shoe — panties at half-mast. Feel­ing a bit sil­ly. Work­ing behind me in one move­ment she’s unclip­ping and remov­ing my bra from me. With the con­fi­dence of a far­ri­er she lifts my left calf in a per­pen­dic­u­lar motion inten­tion­al­ly tip­ping me, forc­ing me to bal­ance against her shoul­der. The shoe is off – clump! —  and her thumb and lit­tle fin­ger stretch the elas­tane top of my sock wide, piv­ot back, glid­ing it down­wards, inside out and off. The same again with the oth­er sock. With­out hes­i­ta­tion, she’s kneel­ing direct­ly in front of me, tak­ing the front tri­an­gle of my knick­ers, scrunch­ing the mate­r­i­al in one hand, and shim­my­ing them down. I’m hav­ing to side­step out quick­ly or risk top­pling over.

 

She’s turn­ing me again, this time towards Miss Sven­son. In Miss Svenson’s hand, held hor­i­zon­tal­ly for me to admire is a thin crook-han­dled cane. We’re look­ing at each oth­er for a few sec­onds. Again Miss Sven­son has the hint of a smile – oth­er­wise, a pic­ture of serenity.

 

“It would be wrong if we didn’t let you expe­ri­ence the cane . . just a taster. Twelve strokes. I know you can take it.”

 

I feel a bit flut­tery, unsure how to stand, what is expect­ed. In any case Miss Pren­der­gast now occu­pies the cen­tre of the carpet.

 

In answer, “Place your hands on Miss Prendergast’s shoul­ders, Ver­i­ty please.”

 

A very odd pos­ture. I’m look­ing at the back of Miss Prendergast’s jack­et, tai­lored, dark brown, styl­ish­ly heavy but­tons. No soon­er are my palms meet­ing the smooth padded wool, though, than Miss Pren­der­gast is tak­ing my wrists and tuck­ing them towards her chest. The momen­tum is let­ting her fold my upper arms under hers, so that I’m being made to per­form a back­ward embrace on her, my jaw­line touch­ing her cheek. I notice her soft skin smells faint­ly of soap, an old-fash­ioned and rather good soap.

 

Although Miss Pren­der­gast is stoop­ing slight­ly I’m hav­ing to strain to a tip­toe just to reach the ground. She’s around four inch­es taller than I am. As she stands to her prop­er height I now under­stand the pur­pose of the posi­tion I’m in; dan­gling in midair with my roast­ing bot­tom thrust provoca­tive­ly out­wards, that’s the pur­pose. But Miss Pren­der­gast hasn’t fin­ished and leans for­ward, bend­ing from her waist, angling me high­er. I’m wor­ry­ing that my cen­tre of grav­i­ty might top­ple us right over, but appar­ent­ly not. With a final flour­ish she’s stick­ing her bot­tom out. Right out. I’m a wob­bling bea­con atop a brown-suit­ed mountain.

 

Miss Sven­son is tak­ing time to posi­tion her­self. Each time she adjusts her stance she cal­i­brates again with three quick taps, one-two-three, to my right but­tock. I can feel now at each check that the tip of the cane is find­ing pre­cise­ly the same spot, just inside the far edge of the well-worked crim­son oblong.

 

Miss Svenson’s voice has warm-edged author­i­ty: “We’ll take these slow­ly, Ver­i­ty, as you’re new to this, in sets of four. And if you wrig­gle too much, well . . I may just have to add more strokes.”

 

Right on cue Miss Pren­der­gast rotates her hips back, round, in two or three huge arcs. Nat­u­ral­ly my hips and bot­tom have no choice but to fol­low the move­ments beneath me, exag­ger­at­ing them, in what can only be described as wicked­ly auda­cious wrig­gling. A fine time for pantomime . .

 

“Right you are, my girl. Four­teen strokes it is!”

 

More taps to per­fect the line of her swing. An age is pass­ing before I can sense her pulling taut, back­ward, high­er. She’s releas­ing. Now! A clean whis­tle, a crack and I’m feel­ing that I’ve been cut in half. More excru­ci­at­ing than any­thing, ever. A shriek is tear­ing the air – is it mine?

 

“Take your time my dear. Breathe deeply. Recov­er. Absolute­ly no rush. We can do these one at a time, not a prob­lem . . you tell me when you’re ready for the next one.”

 

“Are you com­fort­able enough there Miss Pren­der­gast?” Miss Prendergast’s upbeat voice is affirm­ing some­where near my ear that she, like Miss Sven­son, is in this for the long haul.

 

I’m wait­ing now for the third stroke and realise I’m squeez­ing Miss Prendergast’s shoul­ders tight­ly. I force myself to con­scious­ly relax and hear myself croak­ing per­mis­sion for the next stroke to fall. Light taps, almost sooth­ing on my left cheek, and then a vicious­ly high-pitched hiss and crack. Tor­ture! I swal­low a breathy howl, and am rock­ing back and forth through the lim­it­ed inch­es allowed to me. My moans are qui­et and, I sense, accept­able to Miss Sven­son and Miss Prendergast.

 

The fourth stroke now, and it’s less intense. Maybe I real­ly can take this. Pain, yes, but very bearable.

 

How wrong; I’m too quick in say­ing I’m ready for stroke num­ber five. The taps are cur­so­ry and the cut severe, enveloped in dead­ly accu­ra­cy. A new agony. Fierce. I’m sob­bing now.

 

Miss Sven­son is step­ping round to the oth­er side of us, and Miss Pren­der­gast tilts and angles me afresh. But I’m a sur­vivor – one stroke at a time. And I’m grate­ful I can deter­mine the pace. A good cou­ple of min­utes I give myself between each of the last few.

 

Just two more to go.

 

Jeep­ers creep­ers that hurt! Right in the crease below my left but­tock, and I know I’m trem­bling with the acute shock.

 

“Well done, Ver­i­ty. I’m proud of you. You’re a brave girl. Just one more now and then Miss Pren­der­gast will put you down and get the cold cream. And a glass of wine maybe.”

 

I’m sure this is going to be roy­al­ty among cane strokes. So, grit­ting my teeth, whis­per­ing assent, stiff­en­ing my body and prepar­ing for some­thing hor­ri­bly real. The cane sings in the air and I scream. A real gut­tur­al scream — sub­sid­ing as quick­ly as it hap­pened, leav­ing me whim­per­ing to myself. In slow motion now, Miss Svenson’s reas­sur­ing hands are on my waist to steady me as my feet con­nect with the ground again. Blis­ter­ing hurt and exhil­a­rat­ing triumph.

 

My first instinct as I‘m step­ping on to the plat­form at Lon­don Bridge is to turn my phone on – can’t believe I’ve been near­ly four hours with­out it. It’s beep­ing into life and announc­ing an sms. Sender: Elsa Sven­son:  I’m click­ing, I’m click­ing, resent­ing the micro-sec­onds it’s tak­ing to load. Then, on the screen, in sil­ver-grey: A date for your diary . .  Sat 16 Jun. Are you free?  ES  x 

 

I’m grin­ning uncon­trol­lably. And the tum­bling but­ter­flies begin again.