Down in Basil’s Cellar

Story from Blushes 28. A follow-up of sorts to The Cellar and Sally-Anne.

If a girl wasn’t conscientious about those things; rent, train fares, lunches — well, you could go without lunches, of course, and could even pretend that not having lunch was good for you, especially if you had a tendency to put on the odd pound or two. The odd pound or two — that was Sally’s weak point. Pounds; at the moment, actually, twenty three pounds, which was what she paid for her two rooms and half a bathroom, each week. Well, was supposed to pay, only — if a girl wasn’t conscientious about these things —

Basil was pottering about in the cellar, tidying up. Hiding the evidence, more like; there was a dull rattle as he slid the slender cane, which he’d used on Sally’s bum, down behind a pipe which rose up the whitewashed wall to the gas meter. Behind a board in the joist-supported ceiling there was a little collection of those other items which he no doubt used to punish the bottoms of other girls he lured down into his cellar: two leather straps, a couple more canes; Sally had only glimpsed them, when he’d taken her down there the first time to give her bottom its first-ever caning, but she’d known that he’d only have them — wouldn’t he — if he found opportunities to use them. Babs, whom she’d met once, was almost certainly one of those other girls; Sally thought she might be his niece, but wasn’t sure.

Basil’s shoes grated on the gritty floor and he came to the foot of the rickety cellar steps, looking up at her over his spectacles, smiling condescendingly.

‘So you’ll pay the four weeks you owe me at the end of the month?’

Clutching her skirt and slip to her waist still — he hadn’t said she could stop holding it up and so she still did — Sally bit her lip, tasting the salt of tears, one hand wandering down her thigh to the waistband of her half-mast knickers; she nodded, not certain of her voice, feeling the need to cry still hot behind her eyelids.

Basil grinned dubiously. ‘Sure?’

Sally’s nod was more positive; she didn’t want that cane across her bottom again. And, of course, there and then, halfway up the cellar steps and more or less naked from the waist down, she meant it. She did mean it — but then, when she got paid in — what was it? Three days? Well, there would be her monthly season ticket to buy, that dress in the shop down the High Street, fifteen pounds she owed to Petty Cash; owing four weeks rent wasn’t funny — getting caned was something she and her bum didn’t need — but she just might have to give him half of what she owed and pay the rest when she could. Then she’d only really owe two weeks — that’s if he’d let her off paying next month’s rent in advance and take it — well, when she had it. Two weeks; that would mean another knickers-down half-hour in the cellar, but owing two weeks was only a spanking. Perhaps she’d try to give him all of it. Perhaps.

But she knew she wouldn’t. She would simply have to have that dress, and then of course she’d need shoes to go with it.

‘Alright, then. See you on rent day.’ Another of his condescending smiles. ‘You may pull your knickers up now, Sally.’

‘Th-thank you — ‘The soft ‘shush’ of knickers sliding up bare thighs. She turned on the narrow stairs, still hoisting her knickers back into place, young bottom trembly-plump, pink-wealed, neat shoes tripping hurriedly up the stairs, Basil looking up even when her skirt and slip fell back into place.

Fat chance, he thought. Fat chance of that young lady giving him four weeks rent all in one go; fat little bum — he’d have her back down here inside a fortnight and smack it good and hard. And then he’d let her think he’d forgotten about the money after that. Let her get away with it until he slipped up to her room one Sunday morning and said ‘Four weeks owing, my dear,’ and watched her face as she went pale at the thought of four weeks’ worth of caning across her fat little bottom. Or he might not cane it; he might get a strap out, the one he liked to use on Babs, and oil it up a bit and then see how Miss Sally Aldridge liked that!