Usherettes Regrets (1)

First in a four-part saga, from Blushes 6

As the usherettes queued up to get their issue of programmes, Cecilia was last in line, nearly late as usual. Her friends described her as ‘dizzy’. The front-of-house manager at the theatre where she worked in the evenings had warned her a couple of times about being ‘slapdash’: late reporting for work, gossiping with her colleagues, and on two occasions being short on her programme money.

‘But it’s only twelve pence.’

‘It’s not the amount of money I’m worried about, Cecilia, it’s the principle of not managing to get your sums right when you’re giving change: you’re slapdash, you know.’

Roger, the manager, was fair to all the girls — most of them from the drama school not far from the theatre — and he preferred to use students as they were generally more reliable and even keen to do the work. They also didn’t complain about the less-than-generous wages the theatre paid.

Cecilia’s turn to take her programmes came, and Roger looked up as she signed for them.

‘Let’s try and get the change right tonight, Cecilia, OK?’ he smiled.

‘Oh come on, Roger, I’ve been dead right for two weeks now. You know I’ve been learning that awful part for The Duchess of Malfi. There’s only another week left before the show.’

‘OK, off you go.’

The girls wore an artists smock over their ordinary clothes with a large pouch at the front for holding the change. This made for a cheap uniform and a practical method selling of programmes. Cecilia, as usual, was in a pair of her favourite corduroy jeans, which invariably attracted comments such as ‘Sprayed on, are they?’ or ‘Do you have to lie down to get into them?’ from teasing boyfriends who came to collect some girls when they finished work.

Cecilia’s figure, indeed, was cause for comment. Her legs were not overlong, but rose to join a perfectly peach-shaped bottom which jutted provocatively under the snug corduroy, the faint lines of the girl’s high cut knickers rising sharply from crotch to hip, running across, rather than under and round, each buttock. Out of all the usherettes — and they were a pretty bunch all in all, it was Cecilia who attracted most interest from admiring males. And yet she had no regular boyfriend. Not from lack of offers, it has to be said, for there were regular attempts to form more permanent relationships from the more amorous male drama students.

Theatregoers never seem to arrive in good time for the performance, or they spend so long in the bar that they all end up in a headlong rush for their seats a couple of minutes before curtain-up.

Cecilia hated this time, for she always had trouble sorting out her change, particularly for those five and ten pound notes thrust into her hand for a fifty pence programme. Mental arithmetic was never her strongest point, but she struggled through. Becky, on the other side of the aisle, was always so cool and efficient, with her ‘Yes madam’ and ‘Thank you, sir’ and everything just so. ‘Smug little toad,’ thought Cecilia, ‘I wish her change was short.’

With her daydreaming and the pre-curtain rush, Cecilia didn’t notice the ten pound note flutter to the floor as she handed over a sheaf of ones in change. Nor did she notice Becky scoop up the note and pop it into her own pouch without saying a word. This little oversight was to cost poor Cecilia a rather painful lesson at the end of the evening. A lesson she would rather have done without.

After curtain-up, the girls waited outside the auditorium doors for latecomers, with Becky showing them to their seats at a suitable break while Cecilia sold them programmes. After ten minutes, all but two of the girls went back to the programme room to sort out their money and returned programmes. Cecilia, as usual, was last.

Roger was sitting there totting up his returns book when Cecilia sidled in.

‘Sorry, Roger, lot of latecomers upstairs.’ She turned to the counter and pulled all the money out of her pouch, stacking the coins in tidy piles and the notes in their different denominations.

‘That’s eight programmes back, and so that’s forty-two sold, right? So I should have £21 here.’

‘You’re getting better,’ grinned Roger.

Cecilia counted her coins first, and came up with a round £6. OK so far. As she counted the notes, the colour drained from her face as she realised she was not pence out, but pounds. Ten pounds, to be exact.

‘Er, Roger, there’s something not quite right here. I seem to be exactly ten pounds short. It must have been that big American bloke just before curtain-up. But I know I gave the right change: £9.50’

‘Well, I don’t see how you can be that amount short unless you dropped the £10 note: better get back to the circle and have a look on the floor.’

‘Yeah, yeah, right,’ mumbled Cecilia, trotting out of the door with as anxious a face as she could muster. ‘Oh Christ,’ she thought, ‘now there’s going to be trouble. I’d better check with Becky first.’

She went down to the usherettes’ room and asked Becky if she’d noticed her drop a £10 note, and if any of the other girls might have found it.

‘No, sorry Cessie, I haven’t seen it. You poor thing. Have you looked in the circle where you were standing?’

‘No, but I’m on my way’ replied Cecilia, not noticing the smirk which had spread across Becky’s face as she exchanged glances with a couple of the other girls. There was a suppressed snigger as Cecilia left the room, for they were all in on Becky’s little act of vengeance for when Cecilia had — albeit unwittingly — allowed herself to be taken out on the town by Becky’s latest boyfriend. ‘Just desserts, Cessie; it’ll be no evening job for you from now on, dear,’ she thought to herself.

Cecilia came back to the programme room subdued after an abortive trip to the circle. Of course, there was no sign of the money.

‘Well, you’ve really done it this time, Cecilia,’ glowered Roger, ‘I’ve told you about being slapdash in the past but this really takes the biscuit. I could ask you to repay the money by taking it out of your wages, but I don’t suppose you can afford that can you?’

Cecilia shook her head.

‘Well, I’ll have to let you go, Cecilia. It’s not as if you haven’t had proper warnings. It’s a pity you couldn’t shape up to devote all your attention to the job while you’re here, instead of dreaming about whatever you dream about.’

‘You don’t mean I’m fired, do you?’ squeaked a little voice.

‘Afraid so. And as you had a sub last week against your wages, I’ll have to work it out and let you have the balance through Becky or one of the other girls. It won’t be more than a couple of quid, I shouldn’t think.’

‘Oh God, I don’t believe it.’ A long pause. Roger said nothing. ‘Isn’t there anything else you could do. Stop it from my wages next week, or something?’

‘I don’t think there’s any point, do you, Cecilia. It’s just one thing in a catalogue of slip-ups.’ Another pause.

‘Look, I know I deserve to be punished, but couldn’t you keep me on? I really need the money now, you see. Isn’t there something else you could do?’

‘You’re a little old for a spanking, Cecilia, though I’m sure it would wake your ideas up. But there’s no point,’ replied Roger with a small smile.

‘A spanking?’ Cecilia thought to herself. That wasn’t what she’d had in mind. More a sexual favour in return for overlooking the tenner. But if a spanking was what it took, a spanking it would be.

‘I’d be willing to take anything, Roger, just so long as I can stay working here. Really. Anything.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Have you ever been punished?’

‘What, spanked or strapped or something?’

‘That’s it.’

‘No. But I guess there’s a first time for everything,’ she chuckled nervously.

‘All right, Cecilia. This is what I propose. After the show tonight you will report back here and I will give you a good hiding as the first part of your punishment. Bring that old wooden-backed clothes brush from the cloakroom with you. On Saturday night, after the second show, you will report here again, by which time I shall have a proper school cane to beat you with.’

‘A cane, Roger?’ blurted the girl.

‘Yes, and one other thing. I assume those corduroys come off at night.’

‘Well, of course,’ Cecilia replied, the dim light of realisation finally dawning.

‘Good, because you will receive both the spanking and the caning without the benefit of their protection. In fact,’ he paused for effect, ‘without the benefit of any protection at all.’

‘What bare bum, you mean?’ gasped Cecilia.

‘Exactly. No less than you deserve. Then the slate’s clean.’ Cecilia bit her lower lip. Roger was hoping she wasn’t going to ask how many strokes of brush and cane she would receive. An open-ended arrangement was far better. The thought didn’t occur to her.

‘I agree.’

‘In that case, I’ll see you here after the show. When I’ve locked up the front doors.’

‘Right. OK, Roger. With the brush…’ Cecilia stepped out of the office more aware than before of how tightly the fabric of her cords clung to her backside. Which would offer no consolation in a little over two hours’ time.

Two hours which passed agonisingly slowly. She slipped over to the cloakroom with her bag and offered to relieve the bored girl behind the counter, who was eager to take advantage of an unscheduled break. Cecilia dropped the heavy wooden clothes brush into the bag. Half an hour later, she was in the circle selling ice creams, her mind in a whirl. Then back to the usherettes’ room where she was the object of sly glances and digs.

‘Found that tenner, Cessie? Well, somebody must have picked it up.’

At last the show was over, the audience left, and the other girls called their goodnights as Cecilia went into the loo to wait those awful minutes until she must make the journey up to the back of the upper circle to that little office which would shortly be ringing with the sound of bare teenage backside being smacked with polished mahogany.

As she climbed the stairs, she was aware of her heart thumping, a combination of fear and excitement, the adrenalin pounding through the veins in anticipation of what lay ahead.

She knocked on the door.

‘Come in.’

Turning the handle and pushing, Cecilia was face to face with Roger, now out of his evening suit and dressed casually in jeans and a pullover. She remembered that she had sometimes wondered what Roger would look like without the penguin suit. Now she knew. Quite trendy, really.

Cecilia reached into the bag and pulled out the brush, handing it over with an unnecessary: ‘Here’s the brush, Roger.’

‘Thanks. Let’s get this over with, shall we? You’d better take those cords right off, and roll your shirt up well out of the way.’

The teenage victim sat on a low stool and struggled to get her cowboy boots off before standing and unzipping the snugger-than-snug cords. Turning her back in an unnecessarily coy gesture, she swayed her hips from side to side as she eased them over taut thighs and finally over her feet and onto the floor. She folded them carefully on the stool, then rolled her shirt, equally carefully, up off her buttocks, up her back, until it rested in a neat sausage just below her breasts. After hitching the tiny knickers around so that they covered as much as possible back and front, Cecilia turned to find Roger seated on a chair with the brush in his right hand.

‘Over my knee.’

She stood by his right shoulder and lowered herself, carefully, so carefully, over his knees until her long hair brushed the floor, her hands taking the weight with her toes touching the floor on the other side. Her weight was nicely balanced on his knees as he briskly hitched his fingers into the plain white knickers and with a ‘Lift up please,’ He flicked them easily off the fleshy rump as she lifted her hips clear of his knee. Roger pulled the flimsy material down her legs to mid-thigh before raising the brush and bringing it down with a loud Crack! on the exposed right cheek which wobbled to accommodate the impact before resuming its normal shape with a large oval mark in bright red where the brush had made contact.

Cecilia gasped, jerked, and gave a ‘Yowwwch,’ it had stung far more than she had imagined it would, the sting having a second burst which seemed greater in intensity shortly after the initial impact.

The brush descended noiselessly once again to join with the left buttock. Sppllatt! A jerk and ‘Ooohhh!’ from Cecilia, and a spasm of muscular contractions from her bottom as she strove to keep still over Roger’s knee.

‘This spanking is better than I hoped,’ thought Roger. ‘Lovely backside, well padded without being chubby, and she’s taking it superbly. And bare. I bet half the cast of the show would give a week’s wages to be where I am now. And it’s only cost a tenner!’

Meanwhile, his right hand continued to rise and fall rhythmically with the large brush reddening every part of both the girl’s buttocks, the pale flesh of her thighs in contrast to the brilliant hue of that other area.

After she had taken four or five good whacks on each cheek, Cecilia felt the pain lessen slightly as a sort of numbness set in. Not that it didn’t still hurt. Because he wasn’t letting up. A steady stream of ‘AAhhhs’ and ‘Oowwws’ came from Cecilia’s lips as the spanking continued.

‘Twenty two, twenty three, twenty four,’ whispered Roger to himself as he completed the two dozen he had promised himself, twelve-a-side. As Cecilia realised her punishment was over, she pushed herself up off his knees, pulling her knickers hastily up to cover herself before rubbing frantically at her glowing rear end.

‘You can stand in the corner by the door with your hands on your head for five minutes after that, just to think about it, young lady.’

‘Young lady, indeed,’ she thought, ‘he just wants to gloat over my poor bum.’

The sight was one to treasure, for the knickers barely contained half of the girl’s bottom, the lower cheeks being quite bare… and very rosy.

After five minutes, Cecilia was allowed to pull on her cords, wincing as she did so, and was handed the clothes brush by Roger with the instruction to return it from whence it came.

‘The sooner the better,’ she thought.

‘You took that very well, Cecilia. You can be proud of yourself. So I’ll see you after Saturday second house. OK?’

‘Well, the cane can’t be a lot worse than that I shouldn’t think. Thank you for letting me have this way out. It’s painful, but it’s worth it. I’m off tomorrow night, so I’ll see you on Saturday. Night, Roger.’

‘Goodnight, Cecilia.’

Roger went over to a small cupboard in the corner and, taking out a key, unlocked it to take out two long malacca canes with curved handles. ‘They haven’t seen service for a while. Better take them home for some linseed oil before Saturday’s little extra performance…’

…to be continued.