Join the Dots…

From Blushes 35

The lances of cold water made Caroline gasp, the shower dancing spray round her naked body as she flicked the tumbling wet blonde hair off her face and allowed the jets to force the water into her half-open mouth. It had been a hard match. A good match, too, even if they had lost. Pity about the argument over that line-call, but at least she’d given a good showing of herself.

Turning, the therapeutic water massage was directed onto her back and, with a half-step forward, onto her firm buttocks. The runlets of water found their way into the passage between the cheeks, cascading across the rounded flesh, and caressing her intimate folds before running down the insides of her thighs to the tiled floor below.

‘Caroline?’

‘Yes?’

‘Come out of there!’

She groped for a towel, and failed to find it until the assistant coach pushed it into her hand. ‘Thank you miss.’

‘Mr Harleston wants to see you… immediately.’

Mr Harleston. Supremo of the tennis court. Admired, and feared. What could he want with her? Surely he hadn’t heard about her on-court tantrum?

‘Do you know what it’s about?’

‘Your behaviour, I would think. Time you got a grip on that temper of yours.’

‘Mmmm, I know, but that line call was crazy,’ Caroline whined.

‘I think it was arguing with the umpire that would have reached Mr Harleston’s ears, Caroline. Now jump to it: he wants you there right now.’

It took the girl a little over a minute to towel herself down and dry off her hair, shoving in two yellow grips to hold it up off her face. Saved drying it properly, and brushing it out. The blonde tangle looked casually arranged. It was. Slipping on white cotton knickers, she yanked short socks and flat white shoes onto her feet before reaching for her dress. But it wasn’t on the hook where she had left it.

‘NOW, Caroline!’ the woman shouted.

Caroline grabbed a towelling robe from a neighbouring peg and slipped it over her shoulders before trotting down the corridor and up the two flights of stairs to the offices.

‘In the store room at the end of the corridor!’ advised the woman.

The store room? That was a little odd. Pushing the door open, Caroline grimaced at the bright green panelled walls. Someone had a pretty tacky taste in decoration. Mr Harleston was not there. The only furniture looked long-abandoned. A rather old-fashioned marble top dresser, the tiles on the splashback almost contemporary in their design. Strange how these things went in cycles, Caroline thought idly.

More incongruously, a steel and timber-framed bed, its bare spring base looking particularly unwelcoming, a white T-shirt thrown across one end. The door slammed, and Mr Harleston stood there. No jacket, his face flushed from the exertion of those two flights of stairs, she shouldn’t wonder.

‘Caroline McIntyre?’

‘Yes, Mr Harleston.’

‘Girl involved in the argument with the umpire?’

‘Errr, yes, but…’

‘No buts. Yes or no?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Take that robe off.’

‘But I haven’t got…’ she began until, seeing the look on his face, she slipped the robe off her shoulders and tossed it into the corner. Hands spread at her sides, she stood, boldly, topless, as he gazed at her in some surprise. Caroline had a good body, and she knew it. The firm breasts were well-proportioned, pale pink nipples crowning their perfection.

‘Turn round,’ he ordered. Caroline was conscious of the pubic bush beneath the thin fabric of her panties.

‘I won’t have girls on our team behaving like that. Do you know what happens to girls who behave like that?’

Caroline pondered the wisdom of admitting she had heard tales of unofficial spankings — perhaps in this very room — and even one story of a bare-bottomed caning. She thought it wiser to plead innocence.

‘No, Mr Harleston.’

‘They are punished, my girl. Severely.’

‘Oh.’

‘A girl’s bottom is able to withstand a surprising amount of physical pain, I have discovered. Have you ever been beaten, McIntyre?’

‘No, sir, although I…’ her voice tailed off.

‘What?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Well, I’m going to beat you today.’

Caroline made no response. What response was there to make? You can’t? I won’t let you? I’m too old? I’ll tell someone? Standing there clad only in shoes, socks and knickers, she felt strangely vulnerable, strangely powerless, strangely afraid.

‘We’ll have those little pants off now, I think.’ He took a step towards her, and she backed to the dresser. Moments later, his fingers were firmly hooked into the elastic at the waist and her only protection began its downward journey towards her ankles.

She turned and wriggled in protest. Her reward was a sharp, stinging slap across the back of her thigh.

‘Ooowww!’

The red imprint of his fingers was bright on her creamy flesh. And still her knickers continued their journey. There was a brief tussle as they became entangled round her ankles, her shoes posing a small problem as she obediently lifted first one foot then the other to allow the fabric to be removed.

A firm hand on her right shoulder forced Caroline to turn her back. Two hard, smarting slaps were delivered to her bottom, one to each cheek, with the advice that it would be more prudent to co-operate than resist.

‘Don’t make it worse on yourself. Now wait here. I’ll be back in a moment.’

Embarrassed, uncertain, worried, cold, Caroline stood nervously by the dresser for almost fifteen minutes until Mr Harleston returned, locking the door behind him. Sitting himself on the edge of the bed, he turned her again with a hand on her waist. ‘You have a good arse, McIntyre. I shall enjoy seeing if you can take it.’ He revealed a thick strap which he had hidden behind his back and allowed her to turn and see it for the first time. The widened eyes gave the message loud and clear.

‘I think you’re a little old for an over-the-knee spanking. So I’m going to give you a good leathering instead…’

His eyes dropped with interest to the apex of her thighs, but Caroline made no attempt to hide her sex. There seemed little point.

‘I’ll give you a choice for your leathering. You can either bend over and grip your ankles, or lie on the bed. Which is it to be?’

There was a long pause. Caroline considered the implications of each alternative. As she had never been beaten properly before, she somehow doubted if she would be able to maintain a bending-over position. The bed would seem to offer — despite its unwelcoming bare-springed surface — the better option.

‘I’ll lie on the bed, Mr Harleston.’

‘Up you get, then, face down and lie full length.’ Caroline did as she was told, reaching out to the top to hold onto the uprights.

‘Feet at each side of the bed, like your hands.’

She slid her legs apart until her toes were touching the extremities of the base. She increased her grip at the other end. Mr Harleston looked with admiration at the hirsute junction of her legs.

He allowed the strap to fall gently across the backs of her thighs and smiled as she flinched. He waited for the inevitable question of how many strokes she would get, and it came soon enough.

‘I will decide that when I see how well you take your medicine, McIntyre. The more you move about, the worse it will be. As this appears to be your first thrashing, there is obviously a large amount of ground to be made up.’

He let the long length of leather lie over her nates. Raising it, he brought it down with style and vigour across the fullest parts of those presented cheeks, which quivered obligingly as they absorbed the impact, before springing back into their same inviting curves: ‘Aaaahhheeerrr….’

A second, sharply explosive blow. ‘Ooowww, Christ, Oooh, God… it stings…’

A third, just above the crease where thigh and buttock met.

‘Aahhhh. Christ, that really hurt.’ Puffing and panting, Caroline lay, still spread-eagled, her bottom now demonstrating its protest with an expanding area of bright red bands, each single stroke still clearly evident, the ridging on her skin caused by the edge of the strap just beginning to swell.

A fourth, and a high-pitched yelp from the recipient, her hands leaving the headboard to reach back protectively.

‘Get your hands away,’ ordered Mr Harleston. ‘You’re only half way there, young lady, but I’ll give you a few minutes to cool off.’ Without another word, he unlocked the door and strode from the room, flinging the pain-inflicting implement onto the dresser.

Caroline struggled up off the bed, the marks of the springs like a patchwork quilt across her legs, tummy and breasts. The effect was almost surreal.

She looked anxiously into the mirror propped up on the dresser, and wrinkled her face in horror at the damage the thick leather had inflicted. Picking it up, she realised by its weight why it was so stingingly effective. The heavy tread along the corridor outside announced Mr Harleston’s return. Caroline flung herself, with a creaking, squeaking protest from the bed, onto the springs and adopted the required position.

There was the rumble of voices as the door opened: ‘She’s had four strokes, but as she’s taking it so well I thought you’d be interested to see the other four. Come on in.’

Caroline declined to turn her head to identify the newcomer. It was enough that her bum was burning without it attracting an audience. She had no desire to be further humiliated by knowing who was watching her so exposed, so naked, being soundly flogged. She looked resolutely straight ahead.

She therefore missed the strap being handed to the newcomer, who ran it through his fingers before slashing it down in a bum-slicing curve of pain to explode against the girl’s cheeks.

‘Arrr… damn!’ she yelled.

Swiftly, barely pausing at the top of the swing, he brought it down again just as hard, extracting a further expletive from the alarmed girl, her buttocks clenching and unclenching with all the power of her gluteal muscles. Eventually, they relaxed, ready.

The seventh stroke was delivered across the lower part of her rump, and the last, deliberately but less forcefully, across the backs of her thighs just below that defining crease. Caroline screamed in protest, her head flung angrily round to see the justification for this unfair assault.

Her eyes clouded in tears as she recognised her ex-boyfriend, now captain of the tennis club and in a privileged position with the coach. The disciplining of the younger members of the team, recalcitrant or disobedient, was a privilege shared with pleasure. And after Caroline had so recklessly tossed him aside in favour of an older player, the sweet revenge across her bare backside, the strap hanging smugly by his side, was a satisfying form of justice.

Caroline slumped her head onto the springs and allowed her tears to drip steadily through onto the bare boards below.