A Rod for Her Own Bottom

Photo-story from Janus 98 with Erica Denholme in her only appearance. Based on this one (largely faked) appearance she impressively made it to the semi-finals of the Janus Cup before losing to Wendy East.

‘Ah, Miss Denholme,’ says Jurg Mallander. ‘It’s good of you to come.’

‘It’s nice to be invited,’ says the aspiring actress politely, stepping into the film director’s office and standing there with ballerina grace. Erica Denholme, aged 20, student of drama and dance, is keyed up for this important audition. She is golden-haired, slim and very pretty, and now more than a little nervous. Two days ago, when she was doing nothing more dramatic than standing at a crowded bus stop, this man had come up to her with a murmured, ‘There could be a part in my film for you. Phone me if you’re interested.’

On the business card he handed her before vanishing as swiftly as he had appeared, was the legend Film Director. For Erica, the lure was irresistible. To be a star has always been her dream, and she knew at once that this stroke of fortune must not be missed on account of anything so ignoble as common funk. Surely fate had stepped in to lend her a helping hand. The following day she had tentatively telephoned the number on the card.

Now here she was, gazing into the narrow bearded features of the man who she hoped might help to launch her talents upon the world. Mallander holds his pen like a Hollywood tycoon with a cigar as he scans the lithe form and sweet face of his latest hopeful. He had not been wrong in his assessment of her charms, and the quiet, well-articulated way she speaks is an added bonus. ‘Quite a good voice,’ he remarks. ‘We could work with that.’

She treats him to a smile which reaches her eyes and lights up her face. ‘Will it be a speaking part, Mr Mallander?’

‘Jurg. Call me Jurg, er… Erica.’ He picks up a script in outline form and riffles through its pages. Mallander may yet have actually to make a film, but his sincerity is obvious. She sees his name on the front, and looks at him with new respect.

‘You’re a writer-director? That’s marvellous.’

‘I’ll be straight with you,’ he says. ‘The money’s not in place yet, but it’s well on the way. There’s plenty of interest from the satellite people. I’ve had a budget done, and the production schedule’s ready. That’s why I’m casting now.’

‘What would I have to do? What’s it about? I’ve never actually had a part in a film before.’

He almost laughs at her ingenuousness. Would that he could be as frank with her about his own lack of track, but that would never do. In this game it’s all about bluff and street cred. ‘It’s a one-hour documentary about the English class system since the early nineteenth century,’ he tells her. ‘From Whigs to worker control, Peelers to riot police, discipline to don’t-give-a-damn. Just the kind of thing the Americans go for. And will, you can be sure of that — the market’s huge out there.’

‘Wow, it sounds brilliant.’ Erica is watching him carefully, knowing that there are plenty of no-hope cowboys operating in the outer suburbs of the big time. ‘Wh-what would I have to do?’ she asks again.

He looks Erica up and down. All of a sudden he does not seem so certain. ‘If you’re chosen…’ he begins slowly, and she feels her heart sink. ‘If my first impressions of you are confirmed, that is, then you’d be playing an upper middle class girl who blots her copybook by trying to marry a working class man. The part calls for several lines, which we’ll go through a bit later. But right now I’ll just take down your details.’ Opening a drawer, Mallander extracts a book. On the cover is printed: My Girls.

Erica blinks at the label. ‘I thought I was the first one to be considered,’ she says in dawning dismay.

‘Naturally I’ll be seeing others,’ he informs the starry-eyed girl. ‘However, I’m bound to say that for the particular role I have in mind I have yet to meet anyone who looks and sounds and behaves as ideally you do, Erica. But…’

‘But…?’

‘Well, the part I had in mind calls for a particularly demanding scene.’ He reseats himself with a slight frown and opens the book, pen poised. ‘Stand up straight, would you? Let’s have another look.’ He shakes his head. ‘No, I’m not quite sure anymore, I’m afraid.’

‘Wh-why?’ Erica feels her lower lip start to quiver.

‘Don’t get me wrong. You’re a lovely girl. It’s just that — well, I’m a great believer in realism on camera, and this part may need someone a bit more robust.’ Erica poses, squaring her shoulders and giving what she hopes is a doughty smile as he peers uncertainly at her again. Oh heaven, she wants this part, needs this part.

‘What sort of scene is it?’ she asks in a voice that struggles to stay steady.

‘It isn’t enough to look and sound right,’ he says, again with that chilling hint of doubt. ‘The punishment scene needs to be absolutely real. It’s not something I can fake.’

‘P-punishment…?’ Erica’s throat feels suddenly dry.

‘The errant upper middle class girl dealt with in the manner appropriate to the times. Not some mild, wishy-washy ticking-off as might be the case nowadays.’ He fixes his eyes on hers. ‘It would hurt a bit. The actor wielding the cane won’t be able to play at it, the whole thing would look phoney otherwise. And I don’t intend to cop out by using cutaways or body doubles. You see my problem?’

‘You mean, I’d have to be caned? For real?’

The director sighs. ‘Well, yes.’

‘Caned wh-where? On my hands?’ she asks hopefully.

He shakes his head. ‘The usual place.’

‘My… my bottom?’

Mallander nods. ‘With pantaloons or undergarments first. And then on the bare.’

‘Oh God!’

‘The trouble is, it’s a pivotal scene, stark and real and painful, which cuts directly into British military aggrandisement in the Crimean War. But seeing you more closely, I’d say you were too frail and delicate to take a proper caning. Oh, what a shame…’

Erica breathes deeply, several times, until she feels dizzy. She has to take the chance. ‘I’m a lot tougher than I look,’ she declares.

Mallander looks at her in increasing doubt, then shrugs. ‘Well, as you’re here I may as well take down your details.’ Having jotted down Erica Denholme’s name, age, height and colouring, he stands up and fishes a tape measure from his pocket. ‘Precise bodily measurements will be required for the costume,’ he explains. In increasing anxiety at the part slipping away from her, Erica raises her arms while he measures around her breasts. ‘That’s fine,’ the director muses. ‘Too big a bust wouldn’t be right. Now the waist.’

The span of this, too, is taken and jotted down with a grunt of approval. As he crouches low to run the tape around her hips, Mallander pauses.

‘Is there a problem?’ she asks worriedly.

‘Your skirt’s in the way. The underthings need to fit snug about the hips and backside, see…’

‘You want to measure round my bottom?’ Erica almost laughs at his discomfiture. ‘No problem.’ She unhitches the skirt and pushes it down her legs, stooping as she goes so that her scant white panties bisect a perfectly fleshed derriere. Mallander’s pulses throb, inducing a slight headache as he reaches the tape around to measure the outswells of that delectable rump. Close as he is, her feminine fragrance makes his head swim and he has to take a grip on himself. For art, murmurs a voice in his head. For art and realism, nothing more.

Measuring the girl’s inside leg, sleekly encased as it is in a lacy black stocking, is a further test of fortitude, and when he straightens up and jots the figures in the book, his hand is shaking only a little.

At last he sits down and considers his findings while Erica stands in wait; prettily posed, badly troubled by the feeling that this chance of a lifetime may be seeping away.

At last he looks up. ‘Your skin is very soft,’ he says regretfully. ‘I think it might be kinder not to proceed.’

‘No,’ she almost shouts. ‘No, Mr Mallander!’

‘Jurg, please.’

‘No, Jurg! That isn’t fair. I’m a lot tougher than I look, and I can take the cane!’

‘Have you ever been caned before?’ he enquires.

‘N…no. Not exactly. But I’ll show you. Please give me the chance!’

Mallander gazes at the girl’s flushed cheeks and shining eyes. He stands up, considers, then opens a drawer and takes out a short rattan cane. He swishes it through the air with a sizzling hiss. Erica does not flinch. Her blood is up and her future is at stake.

‘Bend over, then. We’ll give it a try.’

‘Pardon?’

‘This is an audition, Erica. The caning will be fairly mild for now. If you wish to proceed, put your hands on the edge of the desk and push your bottom out.’

Erica does so, glancing round at him in trepidation. Mallander takes a stance, draws back his arm. The cane flashes down and cracks smartly across Erica’s knicker-clad buttocks. The pain, muted by the material, is no more than a fiery sting, yet her eyes moisten at once and she swallows hard, knowing she must get a grip of herself.

Mallander swings the cane high, pauses to consider the splendidly-presented target, then drives in again, not too hard. He hears her gasp as the stick indents a groove across the crown of that tender flesh.

‘Ooof!’ Before Erica can draw a full breath again, her bottom jolts a third time to the sting of the cane, and she feels an urgent need to rub and squeeze the soft mounds. So this is what those poor Victorian girls had to put up with!

To her relief, the impacts have stopped. Thank God! ‘Take down your knickers,’ he says.

‘Wh-what?’

She doesn’t see that he is smiling, nor has she any idea of the pleasure Mallander is deriving from swinging the cane at her buttocks. She has even less idea of what a beautiful sight they present to him. Yet his voice is kindly and strangely soothing. ‘Take down your knickers. It’s what you’d have to do if you got the part.’

Erica finds herself reaching down with trembling hands to push the panties down her legs and off. Now that her bottom is bare she feels a helpless and surprisingly pleasant sense of vulnerability which tingles her breast-tips strangely.

Jurg is enjoying himself. His caning arm feels flexible, his sense of control over this beautiful submissive girl intoxicating. He eyes her naked buttocks, sleek as a nectarine peach, and envisions them huge on the screens of the world, jumping and reddening in glorious Technicolor to the bite of a Victorian rod. If only he could make that other dream come true as well as this…

He brings the cane down. It strikes Erica’s bottom with a flash of heat which causes her to grit her teeth. Seconds pass as the gentle hurt fades, then her body jolts to another smarting crack.

A third precisely-delivered stroke causes her to give a little screech. Pink lines mark the tender curves, and it seems that the rattan is eager to extend its mildly stinging imprints as it sweeps down again, causing Erica’s bottom-cheeks to quiver and pinken further before returning to full plumpness.

Whop. Another stroke plants its hot kiss then springs away. Mallander times his caning well, placing the stripes one beneath the other on the satin skin, while the girl shakes her hips, groans and tosses her lovely head from side to side with commendable verisimilitude, yet keeps her legs straight and herself under control.

The crook-handled implement swings back a fifth time, quivers along its shaft, then hisses in to stir the waiting bottom-flesh to brief motion again. Erica rocks to and fro at the renewed sting, hands gripping at the desk-edge.

‘Last one. Hold still.’ Mallander is smiling, relishing every golden moment of cane-bottom contact. Relishing her youth and shapely beauty, and the chance he may have to work in earnest with Erica Denholme if only the gods of fate and acceptance should smile at last on him and his project. If…

Crack! The whippy stick hits base for the sixth time. Fire streaks through Erica’s bottom; then she is standing, gasping, rubbing and clutching behind her, eyes damp as if from emotion rather than pain. He is still smiling, and she can see he is pleased.

‘Was I… was I all right?’ she asks, still rubbing her tingling buttocks.

‘Very good,’ remarks Jurg Mallander. ‘I’ll be honest, you surprised me. Well done.’

‘Thanks.’ She gives him a delightful smile. ‘Could I ask what happens now?’

‘I haven’t mentioned the nude scene yet. Do I take it you’d have no objection…?’

‘I want you to know I’m a complete professional.’ Erica takes off her top and stands bare-breasted before him, golden hair flowing down to creamy shoulders, azure eyes glowing. My God, thinks Mallander, and I found her at a bloody bus stop on the Agamemnon Road. Surely this time he will get his film made, and she will be a part of his success. Together they will tell their story!

‘Then there’s the spanking scene…’ he finds himself saying, feasting on her nakedness.

‘If I can take that cane, Jurg,’ she declares staunchly, ‘I can take a few slaps on the bottom. Here, we’ll do it now. I really, really want this part.’

Before he can speak again Erica has manoeuvred herself between his legs and leant forward so that her bare bottom-cheeks are only inches from his face, out-thrust and inviting. Her legs feel warm against his and he can feel her trembling, with anticipation rather than trepidation.

‘Spank it. Go on. I’ll show you I can take it!’

Excited himself, Mallander grips her legs between his thighs. Then, steadying with his left arm the graceful bending nude, he brings his right palm smartly down with a meaty smack which flattens both buttocks. Erica shivers, and gives a little cry of pleasure, for after the fire of the cane, whose impacts still smoulder softly in her rear, the spank of his hand stimulates her bottom deliciously.

‘Go on, I can take more.’ She moves and jerks between his clamped thighs as he starts to spank in earnest. Smack, slap, smack, smack, spank. To Erica it is as if cascades of benign sparks are showering all over her out-pushed bottom, hot and stingy, yet bringing a mounting intensity of prickly warmth which spreads down her legs and up her back. Smack-smack-slap.

As for Mallander, he knows he has found one at least of the bright new talents who will feature in the drama-doc he will be able to commence just as soon as all the money is in place and he has sold the package and budget to the international networks. As his hand pounds again and again against the lovely bottom of his star-to-be, he feels the closeness of their strange embrace, while her sighs and grunts and girlish gasps are music to his senses.

Urgently she begins to shift, squirming around him to drape herself submissively across his thighs, buttocks spreading, inviting more. Here is the abandonment to total sensation that an actress can seek for years but never find. Yet, on her very first audition, Erica has found it! The spanking grows heavier, faster, till the delicious heat in her bottom dominates all other sensations, and she gives vent to squeals of sheer euphoria.

And then, as the hand of her Director continues to smack and smack, growing sore and tingling itself, Erica begins to laugh. She laughs with the happy relief of one who has faced the unknown and triumphed, one who feels certain that, young as she is and needs to be, she has today boarded the bus bound for stardom. She laughs, too, at the incongruity of her position: she, a ‘Flashdance’ Fonteyn, and embryonic Streep, sprawled face-down across the lap of the genius with whom she is soon to be united in fame!

‘You’re the one,’ grunts Mallander as his palm continues to spank Erica Denholme’s delightfully wobbling, reddening bottom. ‘There can be no one else. You’ve got the part — it’s yours, it’s yours!’

And she laughs again, in joy, for it is all too wonderful for words.