The Career of High-Handed Wrong

Photo-story from Janus 166, a follow-up to Wanton Spirits from Janus 164 with the radiant Amelia Jane Rutherford.

She’s here again, Amelia Green. Climbing the now familiar staircase to the home office of Sir Elias Fortescue. The room that she has visited every week for six months: old-fashioned, over-decorated, over-furnished — and with its very own unique mixed air of promise and menace.

She’s come a long way in six months. The clothes are still high street, but city centre now, not local, and the price tags are bigger. One more pay rise and the designers will start to make their presence felt in her wardrobe. She has progressed at work, sideways rather than vertically, but is gaining a solid understanding of the banking world. Her GCSE Grade E French is being supplemented by business-focused language courses in French and German; her data-entry level of computing is evolving into systems management. Miss Amelia Green is indeed making progress, helped in large measures by her weekly visits to Sir Elias.

They both know the purported reasons for her visits are spurious: they collude in the pretence that she is in some way failing in her work and needs discreet mentoring that generally has to culminate in physical chastisement, but the façade is maintained. A badly-drafted report; a breach of etiquette with overseas clients; being too familiar in the office; being too rigid in dealing with her colleagues… Sir Elias can be quite creative in identifying misdemeanours. He is also becoming more overt regarding his personal peccadilloes and what Amelia’s full atonement must involve. The thrashings are as severe as ever, but now they are literally gift-wrapped.

She knocks at the office door. A faint creak tells her Sir Elias is within and knows she has arrived, but he makes no effort to call her in and she knows better (a lesson learned the hard way on her third visit) than to enter without permission. She is carrying the box that provides the pretext for this evening’s assignation. It’s very light but she’ll be glad to hand it over and get on with whatever her employer has planned for her.

Still no summons to enter. In any other situation she would have knocked again just in case he had not heard, but that would be a bad choice in this particular situation. So she waits. Still and quiet at first, then adjusting her hold on the box, next pacing as quietly as high heels on wooden floors allow to and fro on the landing, and finally leaning against the wall, ears straining for sounds from inside that will tell her what he’s doing.

‘Enter.’ Finally: the game begins. Sir Elias is seated reading his newspaper with that false concentration that tells her he is not as oblivious to her presence as he would have her believe. She waits for her instructions, knowing it’s part of the ritual, but resenting being made to wait without recognition.

‘You’re fidgeting, Miss Green. You know I don’t like fidgeting.’

‘I arrived half an hour ago, Sir Elias,’ she responds in a firm voice, ‘I’m feeling restless.’ She tugs at his paper, forcing him to look at her momentarily before shaking the pink pages back to their original position and continuing his spurious perusal of the day’s trading. This is a new tactic. Gradually, she has become a more collaborative partner in their encounters; still beholden to her superior but driving their activities forward with a brazen comment or bold action.

‘I’ve brought this package as you requested,’ she tells him, her voice level and her vocabulary precise — welcome changes from the glottal stops and dropped aitches she’d first brought to the austere banking firm. She forces the box upon him and turns to go, knowing the game is now in full flow.

‘Wait!’ he roars, and she stops in her tracks. He calls her back and she turns, flexing the newly-defined calf muscles that three months’ gym membership has developed. The tan is still fake, but looks expensive and ‘natural’ these days, making her seem confident and in control — just as the non-prescription spectacles lend her sophistication and credibility in the workplace.

‘The contents of this box are of little use to me on my own,’ he tells her. He reaches inside and brings out several items, all black, none substantial. ‘They are a gift and I look forward to seeing you in them.’

‘You expect me dress in this tat?’ she asks incredulously (goadingly).

‘I expect you to do as you are told,’ her employer tells her ominously, rising swiftly to thrust a wisp of black silk into her mouth, ‘and not to provide unsolicited opinions.’

She spits out the offending fabric, invoking further ire. ‘Too cold? Too fresh for your tastes? Perhaps you prefer something at body temperature?’

He spins her round and raises her skirt and she braces herself for the first slap of his palm, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he drags at her panties, tugging them down her thighs then telling her to remove them herself. These are sensible white panties, not the crude thongs seen flaunted in magazines and films. Sensible, but sensuous in their silky simplicity.

Naturally she complies with his command and hands over the warm satin, unsurprised when it is bunched up and forced behind her teeth and her employer returns to his paper. Her skirt remains hoicked up and when she attempts to straighten it, Sir Elias tells her to leave it as it is. She considers the situation: she could remain gagged and exposed, submissive to Sir Elias’ whims or she could move things on. Either way, her rump will be reddened and tender for the next three days. She decides tonight is one of the occasions where she will take the lead without making her boss lose face.

She removes the gag and tosses it dismissively on the desk. ‘I’m sure my mouth could be put to better use, Sir Elias.’

There! The provocation she knew he could not resist. In a blur, her jacket is removed; she is draped across Elias Fortescue’s lap with her skirt above her waist and his palm striking her exposed nates.

She feels the ‘pancake’ of flattening flesh as his hand lands on the roundest part of her buttocks; feels the ripple as his hand moves away and each cheek tries to resume its original shape; bucks at the impact of each successive strike and screams out her rage and subjugation. Familiarity with the weekly ritual does not lessen the pain.

She bucks and flails under his ministrations and Sir Elias is forced to constrain her with his leg pinning hers as he delivers ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty or more resounding slaps to her exposed nether regions. Her shoes have been kicked off, her hair is coming loose and her skin has a fragrant sheen.

He knows exactly how hard to hit so that the heat builds up and the scarlet glow spreads evenly without causing any permanent damage or exhausting either himself or his subordinate. He has practised for many years and is as skilled in the art of corporal punishment as he is in banking.

Amelia slips from his grasp, but he drags her back, pushing her, as ever, to accept just a little more than she thinks she can take; extending her boundaries and demonstrating his absolute control over her.

‘Now, take the box onto the landing and change into its contents,’ he tells her. The house is huge but she has only ever seen the stairway, the office and a small bathroom on the floor below in which she is allowed to tidy herself before going home. Just as the bank is organised in departments and files, so Sir Elias’ home is catalogued into discrete areas of personal, public and very private territories. Amelia Green warrants access only to the latter areas.

He can hear the rustle of clothing shed and donned with careful efficiency. Her entrance does not disappoint: a tall blonde bedecked in classic black erotic lingerie. She preens and poses in the doorway: a competent vamp with buttocks redder than her glossed lips. She slinks across the room and drapes herself across the roll-top desk. She knows this will provoke the next stage of her chastisement but that is, after all, why she is here.

‘Stay there,’ she is told, and her legs tense in readiness for the fall of the belt Sir Elias is flexing between his hands. Her already burnished skin unbelievably flares up another few degrees. She senses the impact in stages: the weight of leather compressing the padded flesh; the heat; the chill as the sensation works itself through the network of nerves so that the pain is spread to untouched areas above her waist and below her knees; the air escaping her lungs as a gasp, the flexing of limb muscles and tingling in her scalp.

Tonight there is a new twist to her punishment. After the first blow, the strap does not seek out her rounded arse but lands instead on the cool and unmarked area above her hips, striking her back and leaving a series of red and angry welts. He knows he must be careful and she trusts him to do her no harm, but the new type of pain brings a unique humiliation and atavistic memories of ancient floggings.

Gradually, the strap strikes lower, concentrating on biting the tender flesh outlined by Amelia’s garter belt and stocking tops.

Despite herself and the experience gained from their previous encounters, she reaches out and beseeches her tormentor to cease, knowing even as she does so that her actions will simply earn her at least a further two lashes.

If only she hadn’t done that: Sir Elias had already decided to end this stage of her punishment but her action forced him to add the extra strokes. His heart is not really in them, but they are effective nonetheless.

He lets her sink to the floor, gives her a moment to compose herself, then reaches into the fluffy stole that has miraculously stayed in place around her shoulders. Her breasts are firm and her nipples firmer. She flinches slightly, but over the past months his attentions have become progressively more intimate and she is not really surprised at this liberty-taking.

She knows the wooden chest intimately: if she closes her eyes she can describe every groove, nick and scratch she has felt under her stomach, thighs, knees or hands. She sits on it now and submits to the maulings of her boss. As the wood cools her blazing rear she is surprised to realise she would — given the choice, which of course she isn’t — prefer to take a further thrashing than suffer this disrespectful groping.

‘Kiss the belt,’ Sir Elias instructs, then ‘open your legs.’ The leather teases her through the gossamer fabric, menacing and caressing simultaneously.

Amelia is agitated. These meetings are lasting longer and growing more erotic each time; she wants to know what direction the relationship is moving towards. While her career continues to flourish, she will entrust her body to Sir Elias, but sometimes she hankers for a life beyond the bank and this house. As long as she has these appointments to keep and her body bears the marks of her ‘treatments’ she cannot hope to have a conventional social life. Sir Elias has manoeuvred her into a position where every aspect of her life is under his control, whilst, ostensibly, he is simply an encouraging employer.

As she muses, she is being guided into position on the chest; an occurrence so familiar she’s barely noticed the gentle guiding pressure to make her lie along its top, her weight supported by her hands on the floor. What will it be? She hopes it’s not the birch.

Her wish is granted. Sir Elias takes up a thin cane. It will whistle through the air, it will cut into her already beleaguered flesh and will leave distinctive mauve and white tramlines. She writhes and curses each time the malevolent rod strikes, her appeals for clemency falling on deaf ears.

And now, another twist. Sir Elias removes his tie and uses it to bind Amelia’s wrists. She breathes deeply and reminds herself that she trusts her mentor, that he knows what he is doing and what is best for them both, but she wonders about the implications of this new departure.

Gently, she is guided back into position and now her raised, exposed backside is thoroughly thrashed.

She cannot move for fear her tied wrists will fail to support her, but her shouts bear witness to the power behind each blow.

Sir Elias enjoys her vocalisations, but wishes they were just a tad quieter. A tawse, employed on her rump just the previous week, and the threat of what may happen should she be so reckless as to spit it out, provides an impromptu gag. Inevitably, as the cane cuts across several previous weals, she screams aloud and the tawse falls to the floor.

Instinctively, Sir Elias picks it up and prepares to reacquaint it with his employee’s rear end but realises that the area can take no further punishment today.

He helps Amelia sit up and reclaims his tie. Her relief is short lived, however, as he orders her to hold out her hands to receive four strokes from the tawse on her upturned palms. Yet again, just as she thinks her body is beyond comprehending any new pain, it manages to find fresh, untried nerves to react. He has punished her hands before, but at the beginning of one of their sessions, and less fiercely. She wonders if this is now to become as regular an experience as having her bottom caned.

She cries. Simple warm tears seep from her eyes and creep down her face. She sits gingerly on the edge of the chest, chastely covering her naked breasts, waiting for permission to dress and leave. Usually the order is given summarily, in much the same way as her boss would tell her to file a report in the office. Today, however, there’s a pause. She is aware of him behind her but she cannot tell what he is doing and is too embarrassed — afraid? — to turn and look. She feels a touch: a finger, a tongue, an implement? Her scorching nates are desensitised but she knows they are being explored, feels pressure, squeezing, stretching… She could find it pleasurable, she could encourage deeper excavations, but instead she tenses and the sensations stop.

Again she waits for an instruction to go but instead it is Sir Elias who quits the room and she is left confused, perched on the trunk like a pixie on a toadstool. Will he return? Should she gather up her clothes and get dressed? She cannot make decisions for herself, she needs Sir Elias to guide her.

Her body cools, the pain subsides to a hot ache. Already she is thinking ahead to her next visit and wondering what new erotic elements might be introduced into their developing relationship.