Thursday

Story from Janus 14 by R.T. Mason

The raucous jangling of the alarm abruptly jarred her from sleep. Its inhuman noise continued — for perhaps 30 seconds — until Bob reached blindly over and extinguished it. They both lay back collecting their senses in the sudden silence. Still half asleep she said, ‘What day is it?’

Husband Bob did not answer. Instead she felt his hand reach between her bare legs to her pussy. She groaned with pleasure as he stroked her, and automatically reached her own hand out to take hold of his stiffening penis. ‘Mmm…’ she murmured, ‘Please tell me it’s the weekend.’

Bob, becoming fully erect in her hand: ‘It’s Thursday.’

‘Oh God!’ she groaned, ‘Not Thursday! And I was thinking it might be the bloody weekend.’ She pushed him away. ‘Come on, darling. You know there’s no time.’

She started to get out of bed but he held her back. ‘Just a few minutes. There’s time for a quickie.’

‘No, there’s not! You know you were late last week and we can’t afford you losing your job. Both of us would be the end.’

She managed to break free from his clutching hands, then walked nude across the bedroom to her dressing gown — a perfectly shaped young Venus. The Venus of Reynolds Avenue, Chelmsford, Essex.

Venus’ delectable form disappeared in the dressing gown. ‘Come on, darling. Cheer up! Tomorrow’s Friday and then it’s glorious Saturday, and we can have a lie in and…’

‘Fuck!’ said Bob vehemently.

‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘We can lie in and fuck.’

Making the coffee, though, Jackie Stevens was not smiling. Partly because she was not exactly at her best at 7 am and also because it was that awful day again. Thursday! The day of the week she hated. Thursday afternoons… She put it out of her mind. No point thinking about it until she had to. Later.

She had some toast and coffee with Bob, then as soon as he’d left had a bath and got dressed. Other days she might go back to bed for the luxury of another half hour but not on Thursdays. Because with her afternoon appointment it meant she had no time to waste. She at least was a reasonably well-organised person and she went through her tasks efficiently: get young Samantha up and give her breakfast; then her housework; then walk into town for a little shopping. She could do all this without thinking, as she had done for three months now, ever since she had started going there. To Mr Bartlett’s. On Thursday afternoons.

It must have started about a month after she lost her job — that so convenient job as secretary with Hadfields, the printers, who let her leave at half past three to pick Samantha up from the nursery. But then Mr Tucker, the manager, had left and instead there had been Mr Raye. Who was quite different. Within two weeks he had made it very plain that if she wanted to stay in the job she had to go to bed with him. She had refused and she had got the sack. As simple as that. Mr Raye’s stated reason, and the one she told Bob, was that they had to have someone who could stay till 5.30.

Of course she couldn’t find another suitable job and she had very soon felt the pinch. She didn’t have to pay Mrs Green who had been coming in twice a week to clean and there wasn’t Samantha’s nursery to pay for anymore, but she was still going to be very hard-up because, well, when you have two salaries, you spend two salaries. She and Bob hadn’t been saving anything. In particular there was her little car — her beloved Mini. She would be just desolate if she had to get rid of that. And then…

She had started taking Samantha to the park in the afternoons — apart from anything else she couldn’t now bear to be shut up in the house all day — and she had seen him there once or twice, walking his dog, a pleasant-looking older man of about 60. Mr Bartlett. One afternoon they had got into conversation as a result of Samantha talking to the dog. He seemed, as he had looked, just a pleasant friendly man. On subsequent afternoons she found she was telling him about her problems.

Then that day, she and Mr Bartlett were sitting on the park bench with Samantha a little distance away playing with the dog, when two schoolgirls walked by in the uniform of St Monica’s, the local girls’ grammar school. Mr Bartlett said, ‘Don’t they look nice.’ And then: ‘Of course, Mrs Stevens, you’re young enough looking to be taken for a schoolgirl yourself.’

He had looked at her with a rather excited look. ‘Especially if you were wearing one of those uniforms.’

----//----

It was 12.30 when she got back from shopping. Just time to give Samantha her lunch and have a bite herself, and then take Samantha round to Mrs Hardy for the afternoon. Back home it was one o’clock. Time to get ready. For that hateful Thursday afternoon appointment.

In the bathroom, wearing only her knickers, Jackie washed her face, carefully scrubbing off all her make-up. As required by Mr Bartlett. It was true of course, as he said, that she did have a very youthful appearance — softly pretty looks with her tip-tilted nose and full lips together with those big blue eyes and her short ash-blonde hair. Without her make-up she could be taken for 17 rather than her actual 25: which was why she always wore make-up, because a 25-year-old woman does not particularly want to be taken for a 17-year-old schoolgirl.

With Mr Bartlett however it was different. It was that, her youthful appearance, which obviously interested him, excited him. He wanted her to look like a schoolgirl which was why he always insisted on no make-up. She dried her scrubbed face, then combed her hair into two bunches, tying them with red ribbons. The unsophisticated style made her look even more youthful.

She made a face at the mirror, pulling back her shoulders and sticking out her breasts. Her boobs at least weren’t typical of a 17-year-old, unless it was a rather well-developed one. And her nipples especially, particularly after Samantha, were larger than you were likely to find on a schoolgirl.

Reflectively she rubbed them — her nipples — feeling them start to erect and stick out. The same thoughts as always went through her mind: how could she ever have got into this, how could she ever have agreed? If Bob were ever to find out… Really of course, more than anything it had been the thought that she might have to give up that beloved Mini. And naturally she hadn’t realised at first what Mr Bartlett wanted. Just dressing up, was what he had said…

She snapped out of her reverie and, nipples still erect, walked briskly into the bedroom. Bite your lip and tell yourself that it would soon be 4 o’clock and over — for this week at least. She got a chair and stood on it to reach the upper shelf of the wardrobe, reaching to the back under the blankets stored there. Pulling it out: the bag containing the uniform.

She took the contents out of the bag and started dressing. White cotton bra… crisp white cotton blouse… short navy-blue pleated skirt, zipping up at the side… Raising the skirt she slipped off her mauve bikini pants. Mr Bartlett would not approve of them, of course. Hands back up under the skirt with the white cotton suspender belt, fastening it at the back; then pulling on the black, rather coarse weave, lisle stockings and attaching them to the suspenders. Then stepping into the approved knickers, white cotton, with elastic at the legs, pulling them snugly up over her rounded bottom.

Almost finished now. The brown medium-heel shoes. Finally the red-and-white tie and the blazer with its matching red-and-white badge. Matching also her red hair ribbons. It was not the uniform of St Monica’s and Mr Bartlett had never actually said what school it was. He had just produced it that second time she went to his house.

She stood in front of the full-length mirror: an archetypal sweet-as-sugar schoolgirl; demure, pretty, a girl in whose mouth butter would not melt. It was a sight she hated — but Mr Bartlett invariably went bonkers about it.

A glance at her watch. 1.30. Time to go. She slipped a light raincoat on over the uniform — well, you could hardly have the neighbours seeing you like this. Then she reached into the wardrobe, pulling out from behind her coats her old satchel. She had kept it for no particular reason all these years, never dreaming it would be used for this…

She went downstairs, got the Mini out, locked the house doors, and drove off. To Mr Bartlett’s. It was a lovely day, as it had been when she had gone out earlier, the sun still shining and now very little traffic about; and it would have been really pleasant driving the five miles over to his place except… for the purpose of the journey. Her dear Mini, she thought, enjoying the run out — unaware of what she had to submit to to keep it on the road. She wondered, as she drove, which of Mr Bartlett’s little ‘scenes’ he would want to enact today: the schoolgirl who hadn’t done her homework; or who had arrived late for school; or who had been seen out with a boy. There was quite a number of them. But whatever he decided on, the end result, his method of dealing with the particular shortcoming, was always the same. He would take her over his lap, pull up her skirt, slowly draw down the tight white cotton knickers to her knees, and then soundly spank her bare bottom to a rosy tingle.

It was not that it hurt that much. He didn’t spank desperately hard. It was simply the fact that she let him do it — that she let this stranger take her knickers down and spank her bare behind. Bob of course would kill her if he knew. But then he didn’t know, and she could tell herself she wasn’t doing anything awfully wrong. It wasn’t as if Mr Bartlett wanted to do anything else — just spank her bottom.

Well, that and a good, greedy look at her. Because after the spanking he always made her stand facing him holding her skirt up round her waist while he pulled her knickers back up — taking his time about it and continuing the charade by going on about how he hoped she was now very sorry for her misdemeanours. While all the tune he stared goggle-eyed at her nakedness.

But that was all, nothing else. And the £10 he gave her each time, while not exactly a fortune, did at least pay for the Mini’s petrol.

----//----

She parked the car in his driveway and got out, telling herself once more that it would soon be 4 o’clock and all over. She walked round to his back door and rang the bell. Already as always, she could hear someone coming: Mr Bartlett who really, apart from his kinky taste for spanking a bare schoolgirl bottom, was not a particularly awful person. He always made her a cup of tea afterwards. The door opened…

Her heart gave a sudden thump. It was not Mr Bartlett. Definitely not his rather mild 60-year-old face, pink-cheeked and with glasses. Instead it was a much younger man, perhaps 45, balding, with a heavy moustache, and really a much more aggressive look than Mr Bartlett.

She stammered, ‘Oh! Oh, I… I’m sorry. I… I was expecting Mr Bartlett.’ She turned to leave.

‘No, that’s OK. Come in. Yes, come in, I’m expecting you. Mr Bartlett has had to go out but you come on in.’ His hand firmly gripped her arm, reinforcing his words.

She seemed to have no option but to agree, and anyway was too surprised by this sudden turn of events to argue. She went in, suddenly acutely conscious that she was holding her schoolgirl satchel and that under her raincoat was that awful uniform…

The man closed the door behind her. ‘Yes, go ahead, into the lounge. You know the way, I believe.’ He gave a rather harsh laugh. And then his hand was groping at her bottom as she walked in front of him…

‘Don’t!’ She squirmed sharply away. ‘Kindly… don’t do that!’ The situation was suddenly ominous, frightening. Who was this man? And where was Mr Bartlett?

Into the lounge, the man closing the door quickly behind them. The familiar room where, on Thursdays, she was pulled across Mr Bartlett’s lap to have her knickers taken down. But today, this Thursday?

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, here we are. Let me introduce myself. Frank Haines. As I said, your dear friend Mr Bartlett had to go out and I’m here to welcome you in his place. I’ll tell you about that in a minute but first let me take your coat. So I can have a look at you.’

She flushed. ‘No! No, I’m all right, thank you.’

His voice took on a more menacing tone. ‘I said take it off please, Mrs Stevens. I want to see what a 25-year-old schoolgirl looks like.’

Her colour deepened. He knew! And he knew her name! She felt powerless confronted by him. With fumbling fingers she undid the belt and then the buttons of the raincoat. Averting her eyes she slipped it off.

‘Mmmm!’ A gloating sound. ‘Well, isn’t that nice. A proper little knock-out, aren’t we?’

‘Pl…please,’ she said. ‘What do you want?’

He laughed. ‘What do I want? Well for starters I suppose I want the same as old George Bartlett. And we know what that is, don’t we? To take your knickers down and spank that pretty little bum.’

She felt a little faint, beads of perspiration pricking her upper lip. ‘Look… You obviously… I mean I don’t know what… Mr Bartlett said but….’

‘Come on, dear, no need to be coy. George Bartlett doesn’t lie to me. He wouldn’t dare. And if you don’t want to co-operate, well, we can always go to your husband and have a little chat. Can’t we?’

She didn’t answer. Because there was nothing she could say. She just stood there, eyes downcast. He moved close, then went round to stand right behind her. One hand briefly groped at her bottom, then both hands came up and round and started unbuttoning her blazer.

‘Right, Mrs Stevens, let’s have a look at your tits first, shall we,’ he said fiercely.

‘Please,’ she said, ‘Please don’t! Can’t you just let me go home. I came to see Mr Bartlett…’

‘Let you go home?’ His harsh voice sounded incredulous. ‘But I haven’t even started. Be fair. I want to have a look at your tits. I’m rather partial to schoolgirl tits.’

As he said this he was continuing to work on her clothing: loosening her tie and pulling it off, and then his fingers busy at the buttons of her blouse. One by one they were systematically unfastened. His hands inside her blouse, touching her bare flesh… reaching round to the strap of her bra, unfastening it… pulling it off.

Jackie’s breasts suddenly bare. Firm and jutting, dark nipples stiffening. She cringed as his hands took hold of them.

‘Ahh, very nice. Nipples bit big for a schoolgirl though. Have you got a kid?’

Still cringing, she nodded.

‘Ah well, that will do it. Having a kiddy chewing on ‘em does make ‘em nice and big.’

His fingers squeezed and rubbed her nipples. Then he turned her round and, ducking his head, took one of the erect nipples in his mouth. She felt her whole body flush hot as he sucked hard at the nipple, working it in his mouth. He let go… then transferred his mouth to the other nipple, sucking that in turn. She felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness and humiliation that a complete stranger could calmly do this to her. At the same time, though, she experienced an unmistakeable shiver of excitement… Then as abruptly as he had started, he let go.

He went to sit on Mr Bartlett’s settee. ‘OK. Get your clothes back together.’ Red-faced, not knowing where to look, she numbly did as he told her.

‘Well, Mrs Jackie Stevens, I suppose you’re wondering about me, eh? The fact is, you see, your Mr Bartlett has been a naughty boy. Yes, he owes me money and reckoned he couldn’t pay me back; but then I hear from a little birdie that he has a certain something going for him on a regular basis. And what do I find when I do a little investigating, but that in spite of his being so hard-up he seems able to pay this pretty little piece a tenner a week for the privilege of tanning her bare bum. Well, I ask you, my dear. In my position would you be happy?’

Jackie, now with her bra back on and her blouse buttoned up, did not answer.

‘Put that tie back on,’ he said. ‘Anyway the fact of it is I had to have a few hard words with our friend George. And really I don’t know if he’ll be able to afford you anymore. But don’t worry. As it happens I’m rather partial myself to pretty little tarts who are prepared to dress up a pretty little schoolgirls and then have their bare bums smacked. So… I think in future I’ll take over these Thursday slots. In place of old George.’

He looked at Jackie gloatingly. ‘Straighten your tie, my girl! Of course if I was a hard man I could simply threaten to tell your husband and get it for free. But I’m not like that. I’ll give you your ten. Now come over here. Let’s see how you earn it.’

‘Look,’ she said. It was still difficult to believe this was really happening, that this man was here in place of Mr Bartlett. Mr Bartlett who liked spanking but that was strictly all, whereas this man… well, if what he had just done was anything to go by, he was capable of… anything. ‘Please… Look… I don’t want to.’

His voice hard. ‘I didn’t ask if you wanted to. I said come over here.’

Meekly she complied.

‘That’s better. Now get over my lap.’

There was nothing for it but to do as he said. She got down and he pulled her over so that her bottom was nicely placed over his lap. Then he pulled up her skirt.

‘Ahh… proper schoolgirl knickers, eh. Old George liked doing things properly I can see. And these stockings, real old schoolgirl stuff. Did George get them for you?’

She mumbled ‘Yes’, wincing as his hand explored her bottom and thighs.

‘Mmm…’ The hand now at the waistband of her knickers, pulling them down. Down off her bottom and on down to the stocking tops at mid-thigh. His hand back up to her now bare bottom, groping. ‘Mmm… A very nice bum, Mrs Stevens. And now let’s see how it takes the naughty schoolgirl treatment, shall we?’

The hand which was groping her rear stopped groping. And then came down with a viciously stinging SMACK! square across both buttocks. She let out an involuntary yelp, at the same time violently jerking her bottom. IT REALLY HURT! She had barely time to consider that Mr Bartlett had never hit her half as hard when SMACK! his hand came down again, just as hard. She jerked. And yelped. ‘Look… that’s too…’ SMACK! again. ‘Oooh!… it’s too…’ SMACK!

He gave her half a dozen, all viciously hard stingers, then rested his hand on her bottom, and caressed it. ‘How am I doing?’

She realised hotly that she was close to tears. ‘It… It’s…’ And she was stammering like a schoolgirl. ‘It’s too… OOOH! Stop that!’

His hand which had been fondling her buttocks had suddenly gone in between her legs.

‘Come on, Mrs Stevens. I thought naughty schoolgirls liked a little feel down there…’

‘Oooh! Just stop it!’ She struggled desperately as his hand felt her intimately.

He stopped; removed his hand. And then SMACK! … SMACK! … he was viciously spanking her again.

He continued like this, alternating stinging smacks to her bottom with some cruelly intimate gropes, and she was soon quite simply, in spite of herself, in tears. Hotly crying like a schoolgirl from the pain and humiliation and the sheer sense of helplessness. Because he just wouldn’t stop…

Finally, eventually, he did. A last probing feel and then: ‘Right! You can get up now.’

She got up off his lap and, red-faced and tearful, started to pull her knickers up.

‘Don’t do that! Don’t pull them up yet. Didn’t I tell you that was just for starters.’

Jackie looked at him incredulously.

He grinned — but not in a very friendly manner. ‘Don’t you know we’re in the age of equality now. Woman’s Lib. Which means that schoolgirls have to get the same as schoolboys. That’s fair, isn’t it? And you know what schoolboys get, don’t you? Six of the best. With the cane.’

She looked open-mouthed — aghast.

‘Yes.’ He got up and went to the corner of the room. ‘And I’ve got myself a nice little item here especially for your benefit. Got it up in London, Soho. They carry rather a nice range of these things there.’

He now had in his hand a rattan cane, about 3’ long, which he proceeded to swish through the air. ‘Right, young lady. Let’s have you bending over the edge of the table.’

‘No,’ she said weakly. ‘No, please! You can’t…’

‘Can’t? What d’you mean ‘can’t’? I can and I certainly will. Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t hurt all that badly. The thing is, though, you’ll have to be careful your husband doesn’t see the marks afterwards. They say it can take a couple of days for them to disappear.’

Jackie just stood there, looking sick.

‘Come on!’ he said sharply. ‘Get over that table.’

‘Please…’ she said once more, despairingly. ‘Please!…’

‘Get over that table! Right now!’

And she did, shuffling awkwardly over to it in the lowered knickers and with one hand dabbing at her eyes… at the tears…

He stretched her arms out to grip the further side of the table, then flipped her skirt up over her back.

‘Keep your knees straight and your bottom still. If you start writhing around I’ll just give you extra ones.’

He stood at the side, laying the cane testingly across her buttocks, making them jiggle slightly. ‘Right, Miss. Keep still now…’

SWISH… THWACK! In spite of being ready for it the pain seemed unbelievable, like a red-hot poker being suddenly placed across her buttocks. She gasped and yelped, let go of the table top, collapsed her knees, writhed her bottom in absolute anguish.

He grabbed her back. ‘Come on. Remember what I said. Or you’ll simply get more.’

SWISH… THWACK! The second was an exact repeat of the first. The pain, though, was worse for it was combined with the continuing effects of the first stroke. Jackie’s reaction was exactly as before, except that now she did not know what she was gasping, could not control her shrieks.

He hauled her back… THWACK!…

THWACK!…

He duly completed the six, then gave her two more (‘for failing to obey instructions and keep still’). It was over. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘that’s your lot, my girl.’

She remained bent over the table, arms weakly stretched out, sobbing and trembling, her bottom red-hot, twitching and quivering; feeling as though she would never, ever, be able to sit on it again.

----//----

Saturday. The glorious weekend. When for once the morning is not heralded by the diabolical jangling of the alarm clock. The day when men can wake in a leisurely manner and instead of leaping from bed at the crack of dawn can remain snugly between the sheets. Can remain there and, in a leisurely manner, fuck their wives. That indeed is what the typical Reynolds Avenue resident is doing this morning and it is what Bob Stevens of No. 21 has in mind when he wakes up. His pretty young wife Jackie, though, for once is not particularly responsive. She doesn’t feel like it, she says. She has a headache…

Bob manages to persuade her, ignoring the fact that she obviously does not want to do it. She submits, does her best to co-operate, pretending that she is in fact enjoying it.

‘You see,’ says Bob, thrusting into her, ‘you wanted it really.’

‘Yes,’ she says.

But she didn’t. Because she can only think of Thursday. Of the other man, the awful Haines. The horrible man who had undressed her and mocked her, and then touched her up and spanked her really hard. Her stomach churns at the memory of that dreadful caning, the marks of which, when she looked last night, were still clearly showing. She has not been able to get it out of her mind, not for a moment, ever since. But she is going to have to live with it. Because quite clearly she has no option but to continue, to go to his house on Thursday, and again the next Thursday, and the Thursday after…

And there is also Mr Bartlett. Nice old Mr Bartlett who started it all. He called her yesterday asking her to go round to his place in the afternoon, saying it was urgent. She went. Mr Bartlett’s house with its traumatic memories of the day before. Where an unhappy Mr Bartlett confirmed what Mr Haines had said. That he owed Mr Haines money and could no longer afford the £10 a week.

But… Mr Bartlett was desperate to continue as before, whether he could afford £10 or not. With a forced laugh he said he understood she would now be going to Mr Haines on Thursdays. Tuesdays, though? Could she come to him on Tuesdays? He would not be able to manage the £10, of course. Embarrassedly he said: ‘Perhaps £2?’

She had said No, she couldn’t, wouldn’t. But then he had made the same point which Mr Haines had made. Not as blatant, a bit more subtle, but the same point: her husband. Her husband presumably knew nothing of her afternoon activities? And so she had said Yes. Because she had no choice.

So it was now to be Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays in her sweet schoolgirl uniform. Tuesdays to have her bottom spanked and Thursdays that and that awful breath-stopping cane and Mr Haines taking whatever other liberties he wanted. It was no wonder then that she hadn’t been able to get the whole dreadful nightmare out of her mind. The atrocious smart of the cane which had sent flame after flame of undiluted agony shooting through her whole body. Being dominated, used and abused as a sheer sex object by that hateful man. The impossibility of ever breaking free from the twice-weekly cycle of punishments, or of telling her husband who is now urgently, frantically, screwing her.

She blinks her eyes as she realises tears are coming.