Coming a Cropper

Photo-story featuring Helen Daniels (the first of two predecessor stories to Lambert’s Way) from Janus 152. Look out for the product placement — I think the only time I’ve ever seen that in a spanking magazine story.

The maid had opened the main door to Helen Daniels, shown the stable girl into the spacious lounge then discreetly retired. Helen had no idea why she’d been summoned to the big house. Living in rooms above the stables like the other girls and lads who tended the racehorses owned by Lady Marsha Tewkesbury, this was a rare treat, to glimpse how the rich and privileged lived.

Yet Helen was nervous. Lady Marsha was something of a national celebrity. The highpoint of her illustrious career had been to represent Britain in the equestrian events at the Sydney Olympics. At her peak she’d been a fearless steeplechaser, eventer and showjumper, winning the gold cup at Hickstead no less than seven times. An acknowledged beauty pursued by the media, she had been courted by the most dashing and moneyed suitors the world could offer, finally settling for a quiet earl who kept in the background and let her get on with her great love of owning and training horses.

Helen had only seen Lady Marsha briefly, when the head lad felt sufficiently confident about her abilities to put the darkly pretty stable girl in charge of milady’s favourite horse Agent Provocateur as well as three other potential champion racers. The girl was good at her job. Now, as she waited in the plushly-furnished lounge at Tewkesbury House, keyed up with an apprehension as thrilling as it was daunting, Helen dared to hope that her employer might have called her here to discuss a promotion, or perhaps praise her and offer a bonus.

The girl gasped. She hadn’t heard anyone enter, yet Lady Marsha was suddenly there, clad as was usual during the day, in riding gear of hacking jacket and jodhpurs. ‘So,’ the elegant woman said in her refined tones, ‘you are Helen Daniels.’

Helen froze in her seat. Perhaps she should have leaped to her feet, maybe even given a bow or curtsey. But she sat staring in mild shock, for the other’s voice was cold and peremptory rather than warm with congratulation as she’d hoped.

‘Y-yes, my Lady,’ answered Helen in the respectful manner she’d been taught.

‘Stand up!’ snapped Lady Marsha. ‘Have you no manners?’ Helen scrambled awkwardly to her feet and gazed unhappily at her employer. Why was the woman so hostile? What on earth could she possibly have done to invite this?

‘Do you have the slightest idea why I sent for you, girl?’ came the question.

‘Er… no.’ Helen’s words were like mice creeping shyly from hiding.

‘Well, let me tell you. For a start you’ve cost me a two thousand pounds fine.’

‘What?’ The query burst from Helen’s lips. ‘I-I don’t know what you mean, Lady Marsha!’

‘That, plus a ticking-off from the Jockey Club following their enquiry after Agent Provocateur tested positive for doping.’

‘Doping?’ Helen half-shrieked from a dry throat.

‘But it can’t be,’ pleaded the distraught stable girl. ‘I absolutely love that animal, I treat him like a king, do everything for him. Someone must’ve sneaked in and done it, and I watch him so carefully; oh, I can’t believe it.’ Helen wiped tears of consternation away, her legs felt weak. This was terrible.

‘I was going to order the head lad to dismiss you on the spot and not sully myself by bringing you into my presence.’

‘No, please,’ wailed Helen, ‘it wasn’t me, I’d never do anything to hurt that beautiful horse or get you in trouble, my Lady.’ She felt hot and cold in turn, and for a moment felt she might faint.

‘But then I thought,’ Lady Marsha went on, ‘that I’d first have a word with you just to see whether what I’m beginning to suspect might just be true.’

‘I don’t understand,’ the girl managed hoarsely.

‘I begin to wonder whether there are many things you do understand,’ remarked her employer tartly. ‘Now tell me, have you ever fed chocolate to Agent Provocateur?’

‘Ch-chocolate?’

‘Don’t repeat my words back to me, girl,’ said the Lady harshly. ‘Answer the question!’

Dizzy with fright, Helen tried to think. ‘Well yes, I think I did. The other day, now I remember. I gave him a Mars Bar as a special treat. He absolutely loved it.’

There was a silence as Lady Marsha studied her charge. A very pretty girl, and capable. Shapely and light-boned, probably strong. Good on the jumps, too — she’d watched her putting other horses through their paces over the gates. This Daniels girl had potential, it would be a waste to dismiss her without getting to the bottom of this.

‘You can either go now, Daniels — pack your things and get out. Or accept my punishment.’

‘But why?’ the girl said in distress. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. Go? Punishment? What do you mean?’

‘Are you really so stupid,’ thundered Lady Marsha, making the other flinch at the venom in her voice, ‘that you’re unaware that chocolate contains stimulants?’

‘Stimulants?’ echoed Helen in consternation.

‘Yes, stimulants, which show up in a blood test. Theobromine and caffeine, to be precise — both prohibited substances.’

Helen gaped at her employer. No, she hadn’t known. It was just one of those things she was expected to know.

‘Oh God, I’m so sorry,’ the stable girl muttered defeatedly, head down-hung. ‘I’d no idea. It will never happen again.’

‘You bet it won’t,’ Lady Marsha went on. ‘Now then, I’m giving you a chance. What’s it to be?’

‘Pardon?’ Helen couldn’t get her thoughts together.

‘Let me show you something.’ Lady Marsha reached out and picked up a long slim box. On it was printed the name of the horse. ‘This was presented to me the last time I rode Agent Provocateur in competition.’ Helen stared at the box. ‘Open it.’

The puzzled stable girl did so, and brought out a presentation riding-crop with inlaid gold handle. It was beautiful. So delighted was she to handle it, Helen almost smiled. Surely milady had been having a practical joke with her, and this was, in fact, a gift! But a glance at her employer’s face quickly disabused her of this notion, and her smile quickly faded.

‘Do you know, it’s never been used.’ Lady Marsha’s voice was a little softer, but retained its edge. ‘But I’m sure we can find a use for it, Daniels, don’t you?’ Helen’s jaw dropped as she tried to divine what her employer meant. ‘Oh, don’t look so stupid, girl,’ the woman rapped impatiently. ‘I’m perfectly sure you know what I mean.’ She flexed the pliant crop in front of her, and went on: ‘Apart from feeding chocolate to my best horse, you’ve otherwise shown great promise. Frankly, I’d prefer the option of not losing you.’

Helen drew a breath and straightened her shoulders. ‘I don’t want to leave here,’ she declared staunchly, ‘or lose the care of Agent Provocateur and the others.’

‘Then we understand each other perfectly,’ said Lady Marsha quietly. ‘Take down your trousers.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Take-down-your-trousers!’ the woman repeated, stressing each syllable; then stood with hands on hips as the inadvertent wrongdoer did as instructed, unzipping her jeans and pushing them down towards her brown suede boots, revealing red panties. The girl realised with shock what was in store for her, but was prepared to face it.

Lady Marsha sat on a chair and patted her jodhpured thighs. ‘Get across my knee,’ she instructed.

Hugely embarrassed, the stable girl did so, allowing her weight to settle over her mistress’s lap. The woman’s hand rested gently on her bottom. The feeling was not unpleasant, and Helen gave a sigh as the owner of the stables contemplated the pert buttocks presented to her. Marsha came from a line of no-nonsense hard-liners, where failure or neglect were met with by summary physical punishment, and her own bottom had felt the sting of a crop many times. She intended that this was going to hurt — the girl had a hard lesson to learn.

Helen squealed and wriggled as her employer tugged her panties down, stripping her of what scant modesty remained. With a groan the girl sank forward so that her head touched the floor and her naked buttocks were steeply elevated in a perfect position for punishment.

Seconds later it began. Hard, ringing smacks as the palm of the riding-woman’s hand spanked sheets of pain across the soft, yielding flesh. Lady Marsha’s arm was seemingly tireless as she spanked on and on. For the stable girl the pain was explosive and accumulative, her bottom growing increasingly hot as the smiting hand blasted against one buttock, then the other, then both together, again and again.

Helen jerked agitatedly about on her chastiser’s lap, desperate to be free from the blazing smacks. She squealed and shrieked, astonished at how much it hurt. She’d heard about such methods of punishment, of course, and had assumed them to be no longer in use. Now she was learning not only how wrong she was in this assumption, but that the gentle sting she’d imagined was more like sitting on an increasingly hot griddle.

Slap-slap-slap-slap-slap. The woman’s hand rose and fell, till milady herself was grunting with effort. Hardened by the years of tough training, however, she was determined not to desist until this girl had thoroughly learned the extreme gravity of the offence she had committed.

Slap-slap-slap-slap-slap. ’No, NO! Oh God, please, no more. N-O-OOOO, oh fuck!’ In the extremes of her pain, humiliation and discomfiture the girl swore, at which she received a slap so stunningly hard across the centre of both buttocks that she gave a cry and collapsed shuddering across her punisher’s thighs as if all the fight and energy had been driven from her.

‘Stand up,’ demanded Lady Marsha coldly.

Buttocks on fire, Helen stumbled to her feet and stood with head down, rubbing her tormented cheeks in a vain effort to squeeze out the burning hurt. It took her a while to become aware that Lady Marsha had picked up the gold-handled crop and was bending it in her hands.

‘That was only a warm-up, so don’t look so sorry for yourself,’ the lady panted. ‘There’s more to come, and far harder, you wickedly stupid girl!’ She was pointing at the armchair. ‘Kneel up on that, and quick about it.’

Trembling, the chastened stable girl obeyed. ‘Push out that rude little arse — out, OUT,’ Lady Marsha demanded and, in a fever of fright and shame, Helen strained her bottom backwards and gritted her teeth in an anguish of suspense.

With a whistling swish the virgin riding-crop sang through the air and collided excruciatingly with the pretty stable girl’s already scalding rear. Helen gave a shriek as this fresh, shocking pain ignited her bottom. She tried to escape, her feet reached the floor and she wanted to run, but her mistress’s voice stopped her.

‘Stay down and take your punishment!’ came the harsh injunction. ‘You’ve earned it, so take it!’

‘Please, no more,’ gulped Helen, quelling a sob.

‘This should be instructive for you, Daniels,’ added Lady Marsha, poising the crop for the next searing whack. ‘Because now you’ll know what the horse feels if you become too free with the whip.’

‘I’m never too free with the whip,’ gasped Helen. ‘I love that horse…’ Ssthwapp! Whappp! Crack! Aaaagh!’ she squealed.

Three more deeply hurting strokes followed, causing the punished girl to trample her feet crazily on the floor as she tried to contain the pain that streaked across her naked bottom. But even as the next one struck home, she knew that she deserved it. More sizzling crop-strokes followed, till her buttocks swarmed with vicious prickles of ice and fire, jolting and flinching at the next hefty whack, and then the next.

Helen tensed to receive yet another severe stroke, but none came. Then, after panting and gasping and gulping awhile, she heard her employer’s voice. It almost purred.

‘Very well, Daniels, you may stand.’ Lady Marsha was breathing hard. There was a flush on her cheeks and a sheen in her eyes. It had been a good work-out, better almost than a gallop on her favourite mount over the downs in a frosty dawn.

Helen stood up slowly, rubbing her rear, then began to move uncomfortably away. ‘Stay! Stand still!’ The commands rapped out, and the stable girl tensed as the woman’s hand probed her soundly beaten buttocks, tracing the weals and ridges the crop had produced.

‘Take off the rest of your clothes.’ The voice wasn’t hostile any more, and Helen felt she no resistance left in her. Removing her bra and top, she allowed Lady Marsha to fondle her breasts, then her bottom again, the pains in which had muted to a smouldering, like coals glowing after a dramatic conflagration.

‘I’m keeping you on, Daniels,’ Lady Marsha quietly said. ‘As long as you realise that any further mistakes will meet with the same consequences as today. Do I make myself clear?’

The stable girl felt a flash of revolt. She wanted to tell her rich, snooty employer to go to hell. Oddly, she found herself unable to speak, but her glare said it all.

Put your hands on your head!’ called her mistress. ‘I’ll drive that exasperating silliness out of you like I curb a mettlesome horse!’ She swung the crop with an agonising whack across the front of Helen’s thighs, at which the girl’s hands flew up and met behind her head, as previously bidden. She grimaced as Lady Marsha wobbled her breasts with the crop then slapped her hard across the nipples so that she winced.

Do I have your complete compliance?’

‘Yes, mistress,’ said the stable girl humbly.

‘Then kiss the crop which punished you so well.’ Still the girl hesitated. ‘Come on,

[In a rare Janus typographic error the story finished there — maybe they were too busy counting their cash from Agent Provocateur — but I think we were close to the end anyway.]