Hard Times

First part of a three-parter from Whispers 4

‘Shall we have a look at the cellars?’ he said. ‘I always think cellars and basements are quite fascinating, don’t you, Susan?’

Susan didn’t particularly but decided not to say so. If she was going to have to stay with Mr Wilmot for two weeks, and she was, there was no point in getting on the wrong side of him on her very first day. And she had heard what her mother had said to him. ‘Feel free to discipline her, Mr Wilmot; in fact I hope you will. Susan has been getting just a little impossible in some ways lately.’

That was pretty awful of her mother especially when Susan had a good idea she simply wanted to get shot of her daughter for a couple of weeks. Sent away with Mr Wilmot for him to do what he would with her. Actually he was to tutor Susan on the piano. But anyway it certainly wasn’t smart to get on the wrong side of Mr Wilmot. So she followed him down some dank and slippery steps. It felt cold and shivery. Upstairs of course it was a nice warm September day but down here… Ugh! No, Susan didn’t like cellars.

‘These cellars are quite extensive,’ Mr Wilmot said, unlocking an ancient-looking door. ‘At one time there were extensive stocks of wine but the gentleman I bought the place from sold them off. Now the cellars are mostly empty, like this room here.’

It was a quite small bare room lit by a single naked and somewhat grimy bulb. The whole place looked grimy in fact, all cobwebs and dust. There was a table to one side, that was all. Mr Wilmot reached up and Susan gave a yelp. It was suddenly pitch dark.

‘Do you mind the dark, Susan?’ His voice came out of the thick darkness. She yelped yes, and then felt his hand on her arm.

‘Why, Susan?’ He pulled her close.

‘I… I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But I just hate it.’

He chuckled. ‘All you young girls seem to fear the dark — and especially down here. I wonder why? Is it perhaps that you imagine some nasty big rat is going to suddenly appear. To run up your leg? To scurry up into your knickers?’

Susan gave a slightly hysterical yelp. ‘Don’t! Please… please put the light on.’

Mr Wilmot made no move to do so. He now had her pulled hard against him. At least that meant the dark wasn’t quite so scary. He was talking again, out of the darkness.

‘Do you know what I do when a girl is naughty, Susan? I bring her down here and leave her for a while. For an hour or two. And of course I turn off the light. I turn it off from outside naturally so that a girl can’t turn it on again. I find they don’t like this at all. They get quite agitated. I suppose they imagine all those rats and nasty things are coming after them.’

Susan produced a whimpering sound. The thought was unimaginably awful. ‘Would you enjoy that, Susan?’

‘No!’ she squeaked.

‘Well I shall certainly resort to it if other means fail.’ He was turning her round, still holding onto her, so that Susan’s back, and her bottom, were against him. Now she was looking away, out into the blank darkness. It was easy to picture all sorts of horrendous things about to pounce.

‘Do you have a boyfriend, Susan?’

She made a sound which could be interpreted as an affirmative. ‘Yes, I know you do, my dear. In fact that was one of the things your mother complained of. Mooning about with this youth and not working at your studies.’

Mr Wilmot’s hands, in the dark, left Susan’s upper arms and slid round. They simply took hold of her boobs. She gave a squawky gasp. Susan was in her uniform but no blazer. Blouse and skirt and tie. Under the blouse a vest but no bra. She had not been able to find a bra this morning which was a bit strange because she was sure her mother would not have forgotten to pack them. Of course Mr Wilmot had unpacked Susan’s things for her yesterday. Also the bra she had worn when arriving was not where she thought she had left it on the chair. That was funny too, but she had just got dressed without a bra. Susan’s boobs were quite a good size but at the same time nice and firm so it was not a real problem but it did make you feel funny if you weren’t used to it.

Now, unbelievably, in this pitch-black horrible cellar Mr Wilmot had his hands on them. And not just sort of accidentally but holding them, squeezing them…

‘Keep still,’ his voice said sharply in her ear as Susan squirmed with the shock. ‘I don’t suppose you wriggle about when that boy has his hands on them. Eh?’

Susan didn’t answer apart from another squeal. Mr Wilmot’s fingers were pinching her nipples. ‘There’ll be no boys here, Miss. It’s hard work and discipline. I don’t want you even thinking about boys. Is that clear?’

Mr Wilmot gave Susan’s tits a hard final pinch and then let go of them. He let go of her entirely and she was standing alone, all trembly both from this awful darkness and from those squeezing hands. Then something was at her legs. Susan squawked.

‘Stand quite still.’ Mr Wilmot said. It was his hands down there, not a rat.

The hands were lifting her skirt… up to her waist. And then fingers were going in the top of her school knickers. In this nasty darkness Susan’s knickers were being slid down. Mr Wilmot’s stern voice cut short Susan’s alarmed protest. ‘Keep quite still and silent. Unless you want to be left in here for a little spell.’

The knickers came on down. Mr Wilmot’s hand indicated that Susan was to step out of them. They were off; she had no knickers on. ‘Stand still,’ he ordered, still behind her and his voice perhaps a little breathless. ‘Stand quite still, young lady.’

A hand came up the back of her skirt and cupped one cheek of Susan’s now bare bottom. ‘When I put a girl down here, Susan, I always take her knickers off. It’s to give her something to think about. Because when she’s had her little spell down here I always cane her. On her bare bottom, of course.’

As he spoke in this scary darkness the hand was jiggling Susan’s bare bum. ‘Have you got that, Susan?’

Susan said she had. After a bit more jiggling Mr Wilmot let go of her bum. His hand took her arm and led her through the pitch darkness to the door. It was opened. Susan stumbled out and the door was closed again. Then Mr Wilmot switched on the light outside, in the corridor. A sudden blinding brightness that made Susan shut tight her eyes.

Mr Wilmot said quite mildly. ‘I just thought I’d explain all that to you. So we know what’s what, so to speak.’

They walked back along the corridor and then up the stone stairs. It had been just about the most awful thing Susan could ever remember. Really horrible. And of course she now had no knickers on. Upstairs it was like another world, the mid-morning sun slanting in through the windows, the house lovely and warm after that hateful cellar. Mr Wilmot said they would go up to Susan’s room. Inside he closed the door behind them and went to sit down heavily on the little single bed.

‘By the way, Susan, I forgot to tell you. I removed your, er, brassieres from your things. A girl your age doesn’t need such items. Her body should be kept fit and firm with exercise: those things simply encourage a negative attitude. You will have them returned when you leave.’

Susan bit her lip; so that little mystery was solved. Mr Wilmot had a real cheek but with the thought of that dreadful cellar she was not going to say anything. At the moment of course she had no bra or knickers on. She was standing somewhat uncertainly before Mr Wilmot. Why exactly had he come up here with her? The answer to that was also now given.

‘I intend now to spank you, Susan. In view of what your mother said I think an early taste of chastisement is definitely called for. A spanking, not a caning, this first time. The cane, though, I imagine, will certainly follow.’

‘No!’ she blurted automatically; then thinking of the cellar, ‘I mean please… please Mr Wilmot. I haven’t done anything.’ Susan had never been spanked, not a proper spanking. Her mother slapped her legs sometimes when she got particularly annoyed with her but that was all. Never a proper spanking, certainly not from a strange man. And with no knickers.

Mr Wilmot gave her a sharp look. ‘I thought I had made clear what happened to awkward customers, Susan?’

Her hands fidgeted with her skirt. She could picture again that dreadful darkness, this time all by herself down there. She was sure there were rats. And with no knickers on. A girl at school had said, ‘Rats always run up your leg. They go for the warmth. And when they get to your…’ The thought made Susan want to scream.

‘Yes?’ Mr Wilmot’s one word encompassed all of that.

He patted his leg. Susan gulped, stepped forward. He pulled her down, right over, head down near the floor, then simply flipped her short skirt up over her back. His hand on her bare bottom again, as it had been in the cellar. Creeping like a giant spider. And then… a grunting gasp forced from the full red lips as the hand cracked down.

It hurt all right but perhaps worse than that was the very fact it was happening. At 17 to be over a man’s lap with everything bare and a man’s hand cracking down on the cheeks of your bottom, on the backs of your thighs. Stinging the soft ultra-sensitive flesh. It was so awful that shortly Susan realised she was going to cry. She tried desperately to prevent it, at 17 you didn’t cry even if something as awful as this happening. That was what she told herself but it seemed it wasn’t true. The tears came anyway, rolling down her cheeks, plopping off the end of her nose.

When he finally finished and stood Susan on her feet it was even worse. Her face, she knew, was all red and blotchy and she was sobbing, making stupid, baby-like noises. It was partly that business in the cellar but the spanking itself had been dreadful. Mr Wilmot had really beaten the daylights out of her.

He put his hand under her chin forcing Susan to look at him. He was smiling in an awful way.

‘Oh dear: we are a big baby aren’t we, young Susan? I can see we’re going to be in a bit of a state when we get the cane.’

And then Mr Wilmot said that as she was a baby she had better lie down and have a nap like babies do in the middle of the day. He made Susan take all her clothes off and stood and watched while she did so. She stumbled nude in between the sheets, with Mr Wilmot’s giving her a few more smacks for good measure.

He went out and closed the door.

And then Susan had a really good cry.