Lessons from a Gentleman

From Blushes Supplement 21

‘We have most excellent contacts,’ Mr Ingleton said. ‘All the best professions: banking, law, accountancy. You name it really. Yes, a girl with one of our diplomas has no trouble at all in getting a really first class position.’

He smiled across at her. Mr Ingleton was fiftyish, with grey hair and an amiable expression. His voice was plummily confident, the voice of a man with all those excellent contacts. Marion straightened her skirt down over pretty nyloned knees. The only problem would be that Mr Ingleton’s course cost money, a commodity with which she was not particularly well endowed. How did you tell him that?

She had come here as the result of an advertisement in one of the more up-market monthly magazines. A phone call and then this interview, in this plush fifth-floor office in London’s West End. Mr Ingleton, ushering her to one of the armchairs in a cosily secluded corner of the big office, had been charm itself. A real gentleman. The only thing was that Marion had the feeling of being a little out of her depth. Mr Ingleton with his plummy accent no doubt catered primarily for girls with well-off parents who could afford substantial fees so that their daughters could get those mouth-watering jobs. She herself was not in that fortunate position. Though it was embarrassing to have to say so.

But miraculously this was not a problem, or it seemed need not be when Marion finally managed to mention financial matters.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Mr Ingleton assured her. ‘A pretty girl doesn’t need to worry about that. Not if I feel she’s doing her very best, giving 100 percent. If I have a girl who’s performing to the best of her potential that can be reward enough for me.’

Naturally Marion was quite stunned by this generous statement. With relief she explained that this had been a problem because, well, she didn’t have any money and nor could her parents really help. She stammered out her thanks. They were standing now at Mr Ingleton’s window which looked down at the street. There were smartly-dressed girls to be seen down there no doubt in possession of the sort of job Mr Ingleton’s training could obtain. In response to Marion’s heart-felt thanks Mr Ingleton’s arm slid round her waist. She smiled shyly at this friendly, avuncular gesture. Mr Ingleton’s fingers pinched lightly through her grey linen suit jacket.

‘No, it will be my own great pleasure to work with you personally, young lady, and see what I am sure will be the excellent results of my efforts.’

The fingers lightly pinched again. ‘But it will be hard work. I shall work you hard, it is the only way when a girl is to reach the highest standard. And the first requirement is discipline. That is what every top-flight personal secretary has. It is what every top-class employer demands. Discipline, Marion.’

The arm was still there round the waist. It was not unpleasant although Marion was not used to gentlemen’s arms round her waist. It was not at all unpleasant though it did make her heart beat a little faster. Mr Ingleton said, ‘Of course girls who have attended our top public schools know all about discipline; it is a keynote of their regimes. Girls from, ah, other schools frequently have not had that experience.’

‘Am I correct?’ Mr Ingleton asked. Marion wasn’t sure what he was referring to although certainly she had not gone to a public school. She gave a shy smile.

‘I’ll really work just as hard as I can, Mr Ingleton.’

It was those disciplinary aspects that Mr Ingleton wanted to talk about though. ‘Discipline is the keynote,’ he repeated. ‘A girl has to show she can accept discipline. That is what the discerning employer always insists on.’

And Mr Ingleton said they could start on the disciplinary training right away. ‘No time like the present.’ A disarming smile and another squeeze of Marion’s slim waist.

‘We’ll do the test I usually like to do with a new girl. You may find it unusual but it is an excellent test of whether a girl can obey an instruction — even one she may feel unhappy about.’ He paused. Another of those disarmingly amiable looks.

‘What I should like, Marion, is for you to take your knickers off and give them to me. Can you do that? I presume of course that you are wearing them.’

Marion couldn’t believe her ears, but Mr Ingleton calmly repeated his request. ‘I want you to take your knickers off. It’s a test.’ This time as he spoke Mr Ingleton’s hand slid down. Onto the swell of Marion’s bottom.

Her breath hissed out. At Mr Ingleton’s hand and also at those devastating words. She desperately wanted to move away from the hand which was lightly on the full curve of her bottom-cheeks — but somehow she couldn’t. The hand gently jiggled her flesh.

‘Come on. I’m sure you can do it.’

And somehow Marion did. Somehow her trembling hands were reaching up under the pleated grey skirt. Fingers hooking into the top of her brief nylon knickers. Fumbling them down. Pale pink. The pale pink nylon appearing below the grey skirt’s hem. And on down over the nyloned calves. To be shakily slipped off over first one and then the other of her shiny black high-heeled courts.

‘Good. Excellent. An excellent start, Marion. It shows that you have at least the beginning of excellent control.’ He was moving over to his armchair and sitting down. ‘Now then. Come and stand here please.’

Standing at his side. Her pink knickers now on the low coffee table. ‘A little closer please.’ Mr Ingleton’s hand tugging gently at her skirt. ‘Now…’

Marion’s mouth opened in a little gasp. His hand was going up inside her skirt at the back. The back of her nyloned knee.

‘Keep quite still, Marion. This is another test of self-control. Keep perfectly still. All I’m doing is putting my hand up your skirt.’

Yes, he was doing that. Up the back of her trembling leg to the taut stocking top. His fingers shockingly on the warm, intimate flesh above. Clasping the back of her bare thigh, fingers on the inner side. He couldn’t do this.

‘Please… you can’t…’ Words popping breathily out.

The soft, plummy voice. ‘Of course I can, Marion. We’re testing your self-control. That’s all. You’ve taken your knickers off and now I’m going to place my hand on your bottom. All you have to do is stand quite still. Tell yourself you’re in perfect control.’

And almost immediately Mr Ingleton’s hand was on her bottom. Sliding up the smooth, soft thigh and onto the firm ripeness of Marion’s bare bottom. A softly caressing hand impossibly on her bare bottom. Standing here in Mr Ingleton’s palatial office with outside the outer room his smart young secretary who had smiled at Marion and ushered her in. His secretary who very likely knew Mr Ingleton had made her take her knickers off and now was calmly stroking her bare bottom. She felt giddy, a little faint…

‘Turn now, Marion. Just turn towards me.’

It had to be some awful dream. It couldn’t really be happening. Though Marion knew it was happening. That soft voice: ‘Just keep calm and in control.’ She was turning to face him. She could guess what he was going to do. His hand… yes. Doing that impossible, unthinkable thing. His hand. Sliding onto the bush of soft brown hair at the tops of her thighs.

----//----

On the train home. Three quarters of an hour later. Her head in a complete whirl still. Impossible to believe it had all happened, but it had. For one thing she now, sitting in the corner seat of the carriage, had no knickers on. Mr Ingleton had them. Marion moistened nervous lips and pushed her knees tightly together. The man opposite, glancing up from his paper. He couldn’t see. But the feeling… Mr Ingleton…

‘I’m only testing you, Marion. You’re not happy but that only shows that the testing is good. If you enjoyed it, it would be no test, would it?’

She was starting properly tomorrow, Tuesday. Not at Mr Ingleton’s office but at his private flat in the suburbs. Marion gave another quick covert glance across at her fellow traveller. Mr Ingleton had told her to wear the same things tomorrow. And to come wearing no knickers as she was now. He had told her something else too. At his flat tomorrow and on subsequent days there would be punishments, whenever she failed to reach the required standard.

Smiling Mr Ingleton had said, ‘Punishments are an essential part of the training, Marion.’ And then, ‘Of course a girl can never expect to reach the standards at first because they are very high. They have to be. So naturally she will receive punishments at first.’

Then he had told her what that meant. ‘A girl gets her bare bottom spanked. She can also get it slippered and caned as well.’

Before her interview and what Mr Ingleton had done Marion would have thought he was joking when he said that. But now she didn’t think he was joking at all. She felt quite certain he wasn’t. A bare bottom spanking; the cane. They might be unthinkable before but she could picture them now easily enough. Mr Ingleton, with that charming upper-class voice, was probably capable of anything.

Marion really couldn’t see how she could go through with it. Couldn’t she just not turn up tomorrow? Or phone and offer some excuse? But she knew she couldn’t. In spite of that soft, cultured voice Mr Ingleton had a touch of steel about him. An upper-class authoritarian manner. And she had signed a form agreeing to do his course. He could do something if she failed to turn up, he had her name and address, her phone number. No, Marion knew she had to go.

She glanced again at the man opposite. This time his eye met hers and he gave a little smile. She felt herself flush. Her skirt hem was tight down round her knees. But Marion felt as if he had X-ray eyes.

----//----

Mr Ingleton wasn’t going to need X-ray eyes of course. No. ‘Lovely to see you, my dear,’ he said, greeting Marion at his flat which was in an expensive development on the river. She was there, right on time. Feeling almost too nervous to breathe of course. But there. Under her light coat her smart grey suit again. Tan nylons. Black high-heeled courts. And yes, under the trim, pleated skirt that scary, airy feeling of having no knickers on.

Mr Ingleton took her coat and his hand simply went there. To her bottom. Checking no doubt. Standing close in his lounge with his hand lightly on the bottom-cheeks that were bare under her skirt. That giddy feeling again. She shouldn’t have come. She should have rung him up with some excuse. There was nothing he could really have done if she had.

The hand gave a little squeeze and let go. Mr Ingleton sat down on a chair. He didn’t invite Marion to sit down though. His eyes smiling up at her.

‘Lift your skirt, Marion. Right up round your waist.’ He added. ‘It’s a test of course. Your first test of the morning. Another test of obedience and discipline.’

Well, what had she expected: that she would be sitting down learning office procedure, how to deal with clients, all of that? No, after yesterday she couldn’t seriously think that, although there was part of her mind that unrealistically had hoped he might have just been trying to shock her yesterday. And today it might be different. But Mr Ingleton had told her not to wear knickers today. And he had told her that other. Punishments. So it was quite unrealistic to expect anything else.

Standing in front of him Marion lifted her skirt. Looking straight ahead as she showed herself. Her breath hissed out as Mr Ingleton did what he had done yesterday: put his hand there. ‘Stand nice and still, my dear.’ The hand fondling. Her head spinning. And then she was spinning, Mr Ingleton turning her, so that her bare bottom was presented. Her ripe bottom-cheeks now, framed in the side straps of the white suspender belt and the taut dark tops of her nylons. Mr Ingleton’s hand taking hold again: patting, squeezing. And that teasing upper-class voice.

‘Shall we perhaps give it a little lesson right away. Marion dear? So that it knows what to expect?’

Panicky sounds, strangled words, popping out from Marion’s fluttery mouth. Desperately protesting sounds, but naturally they had no effect on Mr Ingleton who was going to do just what he wanted to do. He pulled Marion down across his lap. Her hips squarely across his thighs and his left arm round her waist holding her firm, holding Marion’s skirt in the hoisted up position. His right hand fondling again, at the nicely positioned succulent cheeks, at the smooth bare thighs above the nylons. The hand fondled… and then…

CRACK!… CRACK!… CRACK!…

The deliberate, spaced-out, pistol-like sounds of flesh striking flesh had each a counterpoint of a sharp, shrill cry.

----//----

Wednesday. The 10.00 train again and like yesterday it wasn’t crowded, not full of men commuters, but even so… A man was sitting opposite reading his paper like that man on Monday afternoon. He couldn’t see, Marion told herself. Today she had on a calf-length coat and the skirt of the coat was pulled well down over her knees. Her bare knees. There were her black courts again but apart from that today was different. Today it wasn’t her suit with no knickers. Today it was a nightdress. A sexy baby-doll nightie. A short, hip-length green silk tunic and matching green silk bikini pants. This was what Marion had on under her coat. It was all she had on under it.

Mr Ingleton had handed her the nightie yesterday afternoon. ‘Another test, Marion. Another test of your self-control. You can wear a coat so no one will know what’s underneath. All you have to do is keep calm and not get panicky.’

Marion had her book. She was going to keep her head down throughout the train journey and not make the barest glimmer of eye-contact with anyone. Her head was down but the words on the page meant nothing, a meaningless jumble of black marks. No one could possibly see. But…

Yesterday: that first awful spanking over his lap and two more after it. Interspersed with typing and shorthand practice — which were the excuse for the other two spankings. At lunch Mr Ingleton took her out to an expensive restaurant — which proved an opportunity for further testing.

‘Lift your skirt up and sit on your bare bottom!’ He told her. ‘Don’t be silly,’ when, hot-faced, she protested. ‘No one will see. It’s all in your mind and that’s what discipline is all about.’

As he took her coat Mr Ingleton added, in those softly charming tones, If you don’t do it, Marion, I shall have to take your skirt off. Right here.’

Marion somehow did it. Though she was sure the man at the next table could see.

And then when it was time finally to leave. ‘Tomorrow, Marion, we will have you dressed differently.’

----//----

‘Yes, that’s very nice, don’t you think?’ Marion’s coat was off and she was in Mr Ingleton’s lounge again. ‘No problem on the train? No unnecessary nervousness?’

Marion shook her head. Why did she allow Mr Ingleton to make her do such a thing? Why had she come round here to him again, when she knew what he was going to do…

Mr Ingleton put his arm round her waist. In his other hand Marion saw a leather slipper. He held it up to her. ‘What d’you think, my dear?’

She knew what he meant. He had mentioned a slipper on Monday. He was going to beat her with it. Yes. Mr Ingleton’s hand slipped down to Marion’s bottom in the tight, skimpy bikini pants.

‘Your bottom’s going to feel this today, Marion.’ His fingers doing intimate things. ‘A little change. If you’re in need of correction.’ A pinch. ‘And I daresay you will be.’

Her first one came half an hour later after the first typing session.

‘Work not good enough,’ Mr Ingleton pronounced, as he had a couple of times yesterday. He said he would make some coffee. Meanwhile she could kneel on a cushion on the carpet until he was ready.

He had placed the slipper on the coffee table at the side, on top of her piece of work. Marion licked dry lips. This whole thing, it was like having entered a dream. An unbelievable dream in which she was made to do unbelievable things, or have them done to her. She eyed the innocent looking slipper, which shortly would be stinging her poor bottom. Worse than those awful spankings even, it was bound to be. In a sort of trance she picked up her typing. Mr Ingleton had red-marked every mistake. She put it down again.

The trance-like state did not continue much beyond Mr Ingleton’s return. He brought in the coffee but he wanted to deal with Marion first. He pulled a little table up in front of her and sat down on it. Beckoning her to come forward and get over his lap. The slipper was in his hand. Marion hesitated for only a second but it was long enough for the slipper to crack in against the side of her thigh. She stumbled forward, gasping from the stinging pain.

Over his lap, with her hands down on the carpet. ‘We must learn to obey immediately,’ Mr Ingleton gently told her.

The slipper cracked in again, this time into the tight, brief seat of the pants. She yelled out. As she had anticipated it was a whole lot worse than his hand. The slipper sliced in again. And again. There was a break. But it was only Mr Ingleton unfastening the ties at her hips holding the front and back of the garment together. He was pulling it off. Marion’s bottom was bare. The slipper splatted in again.

Shrieks and yelps as Mr Ingleton continued, until he was quite sure Marion had had what she needed. Then she could have her coffee, sitting on the settee on her bare, slipper-reddened bottom with Mr Ingleton acting as if it was all the most natural thing in the world.

The day continued. More work followed by more punishments. More slipperings of Marion’s now bare bottom. At lunchtime he took her out to the restaurant again. A private room this time. That perhaps was something — because Mr Ingleton was helping to remove Marion’s coat and under it she had only the green silk tunic. It was a private room — but there was of course the waiter to see her.

She was doing very well, Mr Ingleton told her at 4 o’clock when it was finally over for the day. ‘Very well indeed. Now for tomorrow…’

For tomorrow there was to be no green nightie and no smart suit. Nothing. Marion was to come completely nude under her coat, Mr Ingleton told her.