Lesley: The Bottom Line

By Richard Manton from Janus 34.

By popular demand, Lesley resumes her disciplinary adventures from Janus 13 & 21.

The house with the green verandah stood at the end of an elegant late-Georgian terrace, among tree-lined residential streets high above the city. Its classical façade was hidden by the screen of chestnut trees dividing the main road from the crescent of the private terrace-drive.

There was nothing to indicate who lived in the house or what use it might be put to. Early on most afternoons several young women would arrive at intervals — never the same young women. Later on, one or two men would follow — never the same men. It was rare to see one of the girls leaving on foot or bicycle. As a rule they were collected by taxi or private car from the front door.

The blouses, ties, and short pleated skirts of some of the girls suggested fifth-formers arriving for a lesson in deportment. Others, in their tight jeans and singlets, might be girls from shops or offices. There was a third group — self-possessed young women with unisex haircuts — who suggested that a conference on sexual equality and women’s rights was about to take place there.

The girl who arrived early one May afternoon belonged quite clearly to this last group. In a trouser-suit of thin black nylon, she pushed her bicycle into the driveway and locked it. At 28 years old, Lesley was quite tall and trim, her figure remaining firm. If her looks were spoilt it was by the way her straight fair hair had been cut in a ‘liberated’ urchin-crop with long parted fringe. The hair was shaped close to her head from the high crown to her jawline. An admiring glance from a male passer-by was returned by an aloof dismissive stare of her blue eyes. Lesley had the classic good looks of the English middle-class girl in her firm fair-skinned features, though marred by her self-possessed arrogance. Her mouth and chin showed a little girl’s sulkiness.

As Lesley bent over to padlock the bicycle, the thin black nylon of the trouser-suit was drawn skin-tight over a pair of statuesque young buttocks, nicely firmed out by a couple of well-controlled pregnancies. Her thighs were still long, trim and well-exercised. Yet the eyes of the men who were passing the entrance of the drive were drawn at once to that slight proud firming out of Lesley’s bottom!

Straightening up, Lesley shook her parted fringe into place with an impatient grimace. She gave the men an annihilating glance of distaste and rang the door-bell. The way led past several internal doors, each of which closed with the whisper of an airtight and soundproof partition.

Melanie, the Chinese girl who had opened the door, led the visitor to a room where Julie, a bronzed Amazon of thirty with a sheen of black hair, sat at her desk.

Without looking up, she said, ‘You must be Lesley. We use first names here, by the way. And I presume you know why you have come here?’

Julie stood up and faced the newcomer. ‘Answer, please!’

The boyishly-cropped young wife shook her fringe again with the same nervous habit.

‘Yes,’ she said with dismissive contempt in her blue eyes.

‘Good,’ said Julia briskly. ‘After we’ve finished with you here, you’ll know better than to ignore a question put to you by someone in authority. I won’t waste time lecturing you. You are here, of your own free will, to be soundly thrashed for the pain and distress caused to others by your adultery and promiscuity.’

Lesley brushed the fringe with the edge of her hand.

‘If that’s what he wants! If that’s what it takes to soothe his sick little ego!’ The disdain in her high school and college voice was undisguised.

Julie sighed and opened a folder, reading the case-details.

‘Young women come here to be chastised for many reasons, Lesley. They come here, like you, of their own free will. Once here, they are made to obey the rules. You will be no exception to that.’

It was beneath the dignity of the educated and emancipated young wife to reply to this. Julie consulted the file again.

‘I see you actually abandoned all your marital responsibilities, in order to sleep around, Lesley. Adultery and promiscuity!’

‘This is 1984 for goodness sake!’ Lesley’s voice rose like the whine of a spoilt girl-child, ‘My body belongs to me! I decide who uses it! In case you haven’t heard, it’s called a woman’s right!’

Julie ignored the outburst and looked at the file again.

‘Your husband wants you back in the marriage-bed, I see. You want your freedom, as you call it. And, naturally, you want a cash settlement from him as well. To resolve the dispute, you agree to be whipped here in his presence. If you still want a separation and settlement after that, he will consent.’

Lesley’s blue eyes and sullen jaw conveyed a wilful defiance.

‘Anyone who thinks adultery belongs with guilt and punishment is still living in the middle ages,’ she said sulkily.

Julie put the file away.

‘You’re too intelligent to believe such libbers’ claptrap, Lesley. People are still punished through adultery — but now it is the innocent who have to suffer. Think of the years of suffering you have caused to husband and kids by your selfish sleeping around. As for guilt, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re here this afternoon from a deep subconscious need to be punished for your conduct.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ But the words came in a gasp, as if Lesley had been suddenly shaken into recognising a profound truth about herself. The firm line of her mouth faltered. Julie smiled grimly.

‘You’re a young tart, Lesley. That’s the proper term for it. I’d like you to be caught at it in Arabia. They’d know how to use a lash across your bare buttocks and make you scream at every stroke, Lesley. Even that’s less than the suffering you’ve caused!’

For the first time Lesley’s self-assurance wilted and her snooty blue eyes reflected a deep sense of shock. Despite the trendy women friends and the men she slept with, there were those who wanted to see her bottom squirming and eyes brimming like a whore under the lash in some feudal punishment.

‘Off with your trouser-suit, Lesley!’ said Julie sharply, ‘Let’s see what you’re wearing underneath!’

‘No!’ Lesley gave another peevish whine, ‘Why should l?’

‘Want to do it the easy way, Lesley? Or the hard way?’

The boyishly-cropped young wife gave another petulant flick of her long parted fringe.

‘All right,’ she said grudgingly. ‘If I must!’

She took off the jacket of the thin trouser-suit and laid it upon the chair. Undoing the waist of the black nylon trousers, Lesley pulled them down over her hips and drew her legs clear one by one. She folded the trousers over the back of the chair. Above, the waist she now wore a snug, short singlet in white cotton. The singlet shaped her long sleek back with its sheen of mature flesh, and her firmly mature young breasts cupped high by the bra which she wore — breaking all her libber’s vows — as a condition of the agreement.

Below the waist, she was encased only in sheer translucent panty-tights of honey-toned nylon. Julie smiled her admiration at finding a young wife of 28 with such firm-toned Spartan-girl thighs. Her eyes rose to the pressing of fair pubic hair and slight proud swell of the young woman’s belly. Making her turn, Julie admired the marginal broadening of hips caused by careful child-rearing, the erotic firming-out of the mature pale moons of Lesley’s bottom.

‘Now bend forward over the desk, Lesley!’

The young wife turned her fair urchin-crop and hesitated.

‘Get over that desk, Lesley! At once!… That’s better! Tighter still! Good. It’s going to be a real pleasure taking you down a peg or two in the next few hours. Quite still, Lesley while your bottom is examined.’

This caused another peevish wail of protest, soon answered.

‘Don’t be silly, Lesley. You’re going to be thrashed hard. Before that happens we must be satisfied that your hind cheeks are in a fit state to take it. Suppose you’d had a kinky time with your boyfriend last night and he’d birched you for kicks. What a pretty pickle we’d make of your behind, Lesley, if we caned you on top of that!’

With obvious resentment the young wife bowed her fair-haired crop over the desk, and was pressed down until her belly was tight on the polished top.

‘Give your hands to Melanie, Lesley! That should remove one temptation!’

The Chinese maid stood before Lesley with feet braced apart, smiling gently. She took the hands firmly.

Julie’s hand examined lightly the fully rounded and broadened moons of Lesley’s bottom in the filmy honey-toned sheen of panty-tights. She took the elastic waist of the tights and peeled them down and off over Lesley’s ankles. The firm pale flesh of Lesley’s arse and hips swelled free a little in pale feminine voluptuousness as the constricting nylon mesh was drawn clear. Julie smoothed palm and fingers in a light circular massage over Lesley’s buttocks.

‘No, don’t flinch from it, Lesley! When you’ve had the hands of a husband, lovers, and even the randy old doctors in the ante-natal clinic checking you like this, you can’t really be bashful!’

While her fingers mapped the smooth pale contours of Lesley’s arse-cheeks gently, Julie drew up a chair and sat to study the target. Lesley was, indeed, like a young Amazon soldier-girl caught bending, her pale seat-moons so full and firm in this posture, they cried out to be thrashed.

‘I’m sure you look more exciting from this angle now than when you were a bride of 18 or 19, Lesley!’ said Julie quietly. ‘Carrying a baby or two has given just that firm erotic maturity to your seat and hips! When you’re back with your better half, make the most of it. Find a pair of those tight faded blue jeans you wore at college. All the better if they’re a size or two small now. Struggle into them. When he comes home, let him catch you in them, bending over to clean the oven. It’ll be worth every bit of the trouble. He’ll probably take you straight up to the bedroom without even waiting for dinner! Send the kids on a long walk first!’

Lesley wriggled a little to express her libber’s contempt for turning herself into a ‘sex object’. Then she struggled even harder as a flash-gun popped behind her several times and, in addition, Julie stepped round to take two close-ups of her face.

‘For the record, Lesley. Just to show that your derriere was unblemished and in a state to be tanned before we started!’

The examination continued with quiet but remorseless questioning.

‘We know you haven’t been whipped during marriage, Lesley. Nor I suppose at college. Any tannings at school or home while you were growing up?’

This sexist question, so outrageous to an educated and emancipated suburban wife, produced wrestling and gasping. Julie, who had been locking the trouser-suit and tights in the filing cabinet, took a slim triple-tailed leather tawse from another drawer. Without further warning she brought it pistol-smacking down across Lesley’s 28-year-old backside. There was a shrill cry — outrage rather than anguish to begin with.

‘Answer, please!’

‘No! Not at home or school!’

Smack!

‘Ow! That hurts!’

‘Good. A real stinging with the tawse should get you in the mood for what’s coming later, Lesley. It should also help to make up for what you missed at school. In fact, I imagine quite a few of the men who taught you wouldn’t mind paying off a score each this afternoon! Young married women sometimes need to be treated like little girls, Lesley!’

Melanie waited, an enigmatic gleam in her slant Asian eyes, as if she were secretly smiling at the promiscuous young wife in her predicament. Julie whacked the supple leather tawse across the full pale moons of Lesley’s bottom with a sting that smarted like fire.

‘OW!’

An upward lash of the tawse, catching the soft undercurve of Lesley’s seat-cheeks had the boyishly-cropped young libber right up on her toes with the impact of it.

‘OOOW! Stop! That hur-r-ts!’

Julie did not need to be told. Lesley’s bottom was surging and writhing like the rear view of a girl cyclist rising from the saddle and working the pedals hard on a steep hill. The next crack! of the tawse across the crowns of Lesley’s buttocks had a sting vicious enough to have reformed the most defiant fifth form girl. Crossing and tightening her thighs, the young wife jammed one knee into the back of the other in a desperate attempt to contain herself.

The face that was twisted round to Julie had lost all its snootiness. There was such woe under the fair parted fringe of Lesley’s urchin-crop. The sulky mouth opened wide and shrill as the next smack! of leather brought a pink flush — like the sting rash of a nettle — to the lower softness of Lesley’s arse cheeks. Julie smiled.

‘And the last two right across the same undercurve, Lesley!’

‘No! OH, NO!’

Julie put all her wicked skill into the final pair and the room rang with Lesley’s cries. The chastiser stooped to make a close and loving inspection of Lesley’s bum-cheeks which now glowed cherry-red from eight lashing strokes of the school tawse.

‘Such a fuss over a school tanning, Lesley! You ought to have been getting that every week from the fourth form onwards. Bare bottomed over the desk in front of the class. Believe me, it’s nothing to what you’ll get later. In half an hour you’ll be pale in the arse as ever, ready for anything. You needed a taste of leather across your bare behind just to bring you to your senses. Frankly, I don’t much care for arrogant young tarts, Lesley, when they mask their selfishness under a lot of yelling for their rights at the expense of everyone else’s.’

Melanie stood back and Lesley straightened up gingerly. She blinked back her tears, her hands moving towards her seat but not daring to touch the throbbing soreness.

‘You bitch!’ she sobbed gently. ‘Oh, you bitch!’

Julie was not the least angered by these insults.

‘Did you enjoy having your arse tanned, Lesley?’ she snapped. ‘Enjoy it so much that you want some more? No? Mend your manners then, you young tart! Make trouble again and you’ll get your backside into real bother!’

The last tears were blinked away. Lesley flicked her fringe again.

‘You wouldn’t dare!’

‘Ah,’ said Julie understandingly. ‘You mean I wouldn’t dare to leather you half a dozen times before your proper chastisement. Quite right. I’ve got a better way. I’d give it you once, probably twelve sizzlers, just before your bottom’s big moment over the stool. Your bum-cheeks smarting like fire, Lesley, and the real chastiser just choosing a cane for you. Fancy that, do you?’

Lesley stared back, her clear blue eyes now clouded by doubt. The mere suggestion would be enough to make her spine tingle with fright. Julie would not dare to do such a thing. Or would she? Someone would stop the caning, wouldn’t they? Or would they? Julie’s smile suggested that the chastiser — whoever it might be — would actually put more zest into the bambooing if he saw that Lesley’s buttocks were still smarting from the tawse. Might in fact lose all control, incensed by witnessing the effects of her preliminary strapping.

Julie noted the faltering of the sullen mouth and jaw. That pleased her. She knew Lesley would take no chances. Long ago, Julie had learnt that the art of punishing was almost entirely verbal. A chastising service would close overnight if the girls disciplined there emerged as stretcher cases or walking wounded. The key to dealing with a young married libber was to give a real stinging with the tawse across her bare bum, then play on her imagination. Alas, thought Julie, there had to be a limit to the amount of discipline inflicted on Lesley’s bottom. But the art was to make the young libber believe that the amount of whipping was open-ended.

Julie’s success seemed already proved. By renouncing her wish for separation and settlement, Lesley would have been free to go. She was free to go, in any case, without bothering to explain the renunciation. Yet Julie’s natural authority, as well as the automatically-locking soundproof doors, the locking away of tights and trouser-suit too, made her freedom seem an illusion. So Lesley stood, urchin-crop bowed like a chastened little girl after a scolding, naked from the singlet hem at her waist down to her bare feet.

Lesley was next shown the rooms of the chastising service. Punishments were carried out in a large high-corniced drawing room with shutters closed outside the windows and thick velvet curtains drawn within. The bright fluorescent tubes were augmented by spotlights. A heavy music-stool with padded leather top was securely placed at the centre of the carpet with a folding screen to one side. Upon the sofa lay half a dozen canes and two birch rods of official pattern — three long switches bound at the handle.

The next door opened on to a smaller waiting-room.

‘We call it the dance-hall!’ said Julie humorously. ‘You should see the fretting, the pacing about, the nail-biting that goes on in here. Once you get the ten-minute warning, Lesley, you won’t be able to sit still however hard you try!’

Next to this was a toilet. For reasons of prudence, it was a recess without a door. Last of all, across the end of the corridor, they came to a bedroom of considerable luxury.

‘Our Reconciliation Room,’ said Julie with obvious pride.

Lesley’s contemptuous movement of the mouth was ignored. Julie indicated to her the silk-covered bed, the divans and love-nests, the stools of various heights suited to supporting a girl who bent or knelt over them. A slim crook-handled bamboo lay on the carpet. Julie picked it up and put it in the wardrobe.

‘I shan’t be needing this room!’ said Lesley sullenly. ‘I didn’t come here to be reconciled!’

Julie smiled at this.

‘You never know, Lesley! It’s astonishing how demonstrative a husband can be after he’s seen his young wife get her bare bottom caned! I suspect most of the young madams think all their howling and weeping well worth while!’

Lesley turned her face away in distaste.

So they came back to the office. Lesley used the edge of her hand to brush her fringe into place again as she stood before the desk naked from her waist to her feet.

‘I’m not staying,’ she said suddenly.

‘As you wish,’ said Julie. ‘May I tell your husband that the agreement is ended?’

‘No,’ said Lesley. ‘You can pay me and get it back from him. I want that money now!’

‘We do not keep money here, Lesley!’

‘Write a cheque — or else…’

‘Or else?’

‘I’ll go straight to the Police. I’ll tell them I was brought here by force. I’ll tell them I underwent lesbian rape from you. And I’ll do things to myself to make them believe it! I want that twenty thousand! You can get it back from him!’

‘This is blackmail, Lesley,’ said Julie quietly.

‘Who cares? The law was made for men by men. I’ll tell any story I please.’

‘Very well,’ said Julie calmly. She got up and called, ‘Melanie!’ The Chinese girl came in.

Playback, please, Melanie,’ said Julie quietly. As if from a well-tuned stereo came Lesley’s voice.

‘I want that money now… I’ll go straight to the Police… I’ll tell any story I please.’

There was a click as the tape went off.

‘Did you not realise that complete recordings are kept here? It is the most elementary precaution.’

There was such dismay in the aloof blue eyes under the parted fringe at this revelation. Presently Lesley had the courage to ask:

‘Will I… will I be recorded…?’

‘While you’re getting it, Lesley? Most certainly!’ Julie gave her a knowing smile, ‘Especially then!’

Wearing only the short white singlet, the young wife with the short-cropped hair was escorted to the waiting-room. Julie’s eyes dwelt on the rhythmic rounding and falling, meeting and parting of the firmly mature cheeks of Lesley’s bottom as she walked behind the culprit. As the door was about to be closed upon her, Lesley summoned up her nerve again.

‘Will I be… Will it be… Will he…’

‘Will you be caned by your husband, Lesley? That, as they say, would be telling. We also arrange a screen to prevent you seeing the identity of the person. It may be him — it may not be. It is his privilege to choose.’

‘And how many… how many…’ She was having uncharacteristic difficulty in expressing herself.

‘Not quite so snooty now, are we, Lesley? How many strokes? That’s entirely up to the chastiser. Whatever he decides. He can take you all the way. We merely ensure that you get them.’

Julie had arranged matters so that Lesley would be able to hear, faintly through the partition, the sound of several other girls paying their penalties first of all. There were sounds of Helena, a Swedish language-student tanned for shoplifting, and Noreen, a strapping young trollop of nineteen, whose bare bottom was birched for some act of insolence. No leniency was shown and the birching of the sturdy young cheeks of Noreen’s bottom was intended to set Lesley’s nerves jangling.

Last of all, Julie went to fetch the arrogant young libber. When she opened the door, as she predicted, Lesley was on her feet almost wanting to run to the place of chastisement and get her ordeal over with. Julie took her by the arm and led her the short distance to the appointed place.

A curtain was drawn across the room, concealing the firm pale-figured young wife as she walked across to the heavy music stool. A few hours ago, Julie thought, Lesley would have sullenly refused any order to kneel forward over this punishment stool. Now she obeyed hesitantly but without defiance. Julie adjusted the screen on the left-hand side. It was arranged so that however far Lesley twisted her head round she could see nothing of the chastiser. Whoever caned her would see only Lesley’s arse and hips, her thighs and protruding  legs as she knelt. The upper part of her body, firmly over the stool, was concealed. Melanie once again held her hands. This was principally to save Lesley the embarrassment of getting up suddenly and discovering the identity of the chastiser.

There was a last refinement. With a chinagraph, Julie would trace across the broadened and rounded cheeks of Lesley’s bottom the strokes which were to be inflicted, adding a number where more than one was destined in a single area.

The murmur of conversation among the spectators, also concealed from Lesley by the screen, subsided as Julie squatted down with her chinagraph. She tickled Lesley’s behind rudely with its tip to draw her attention. The promiscuous young wife twisted her urchin-crop round in outrage and alarm, the alarm growing as Julie explained the purpose of the marking.

She studied the full pale moons of Lesley’s 28-year-old backside. Then Julie drew a line across the fullest width of the cheek-crowns, allowing Lesley to feel her writing the number ‘3’ beside it. There was a protest, half-gasp and half-cry.

‘Right where you sit, Lesley!’ said Julie with a quick grin.

Twice the marker traced higher up. Then with a wicked smile at the woebegone blue eyes watching her, Julie traced a line across the crease dividing Lesley’s buttocks and thighs. She added another ‘3’ and drew two more lines at half-inch intervals above that. Lesley was no longer too aloof to plead for herself.

‘Not there! Please!’

‘Right where the edge of the chair comes, Lesley! I’ll let you into a secret as well. Some men can’t tell a 3 from a 5 or an 8 without their reading-glasses! Still want to give us a lecture about woman’s right to choose? Still think that screwing around was worth it?’

A wail of protest answered this as Julie now began to draw diagonals across the horizontals. At last Lesley’s yell was loud enough to be heard, with a murmur of amusement, by the onlookers.

‘No! Not any more! Not with a cane! Oh, you bitch! You bitch!’

‘Such an outburst, Lesley! I think that rates making at least one 3 into a 5.’

Julie finished and then stood up.

‘This is it, Lesley! All the way! My goodness, how that pulse in your neck is racing! Let me slide a hand under you a moment. Yes, indeed! I can practically feel the butterflies in your tummy!’

----//----

The chastiser stepped forward with the bamboo. Like Julie, he had no sympathy with emancipated young wives who practised adultery under the pretext of women’s rights. He paused a moment or two, inspecting the target. Like Julie again, he admired the effect of the child-rearing in giving Lesley such an erotically firmed-out seat. He could not resist touching the first aiming stroke across the crease dividing Lesley’s arse-cheeks and thighs. Even as he measured it lightly, he saw that the menace of it made her toes curl in fearful anticipation.

He thrashed once — and twice — across that low undercurve of her seat with pitiless skill. Then, because Lesley was ear-piercingly demanding not to be caned there again, he gave her two more cracking strokes across that same soft lower fatness.

‘Now across the widest spread of your arse, Lesley,’ said Julie who still presided over the punishment. ‘Let’s see you stick it right out. Ah! Did that one make you want to jump right through the ceiling? And again! No, don’t twist your bottom aside like that, Lesley, or you don’t know where it may catch you.’

Then Lesley yelled wildly as the fifth stroke landed across her cheek crowns. A softer outburst followed, as Julie noted.

‘Ah, I thought we’d have tears soon, Lesley! The pity is they didn’t come years ago. Still even a 28-year-old liberated wife isn’t too big to have little-girl weepies!’

Lesley’s long firm thighs were writhing together as if she might be trying to manipulate a roller between them. The cherry-red stripes across her buttocks glowed like the bars of a fire, slowly swelling and throbbing into the traditional weals of the cane. Now the chastiser began, without compunction, to measure diagonally across them.

With stern approval, the onlookers watched the cheeks of Lesley’s bottom rounding and writhing under the strokes, arching and contorting in her desperation. There were gulping sobs and wild cries, the traditional lament of the punishment-room. All of course recorded for future reference. Yet it was rare even in such a place to hear them from an educated and emancipated young wife of her age.

The chastiser was skilled enough not to rush the proceedings. When a couple of diagonals were due across a certain path, he would pause, measuring across Lesley’s squirming seat-cheeks with tantalising skill. Expectation became the greater part of her punishment. Lesley’s buttocks contorted, struggling to contain her apprehension. Sometimes she was guilty of a rudeness which she would ordinarily have forbidden even her boyfriends or other women to hear.

So the chastiser went to work again, caning and touching, caning and touching„ until the last stroke was given with even more vigour than the first. The spectators left. Lesley was permitted to rise. She walked slowly, head bowed in tears, naked from the singlet hem at her waist down to her feet. Julie walked behind her, surveying the thrashed cheeks of Lesley’s backside with a mouth rounded in appreciation.

‘I’d say he forgot his reading-glasses, Lesley, wouldn’t you? And every stroke of the cane across your arse had you up on your toes, as they say. Didn’t it?’

No solace to be drawn from Julie’s spitefully precise observations!

The banter faded away. Outside in the hallway stood the husband. Lesley did the only thing possible to her in her condition. She flung herself, sobbing, into his arms. Julie smiled. Lesley, walking gingerly because of her ferociously smarting bottom, was being led to the Reconciliation Room. Julie nodded. Nine times out of ten it ended that way. A network of such services as hers might put the divorce courts out of business, she thought.

It was two more hours before the door of that room opened and Lesley emerged in search of her tights and trouser-suit. She walked thoughtfully now with the air of a young woman whose desires had been copiously fulfilled, several times in succession. Julie grinned at her.

‘Worth it, Lesley? You can’t wait to get back to married life now, can you?’

The young wife kept her urchin-crop bowed as her clothes were returned. Julie turned her round and looked quizzically.

‘I don’t think all those bamboo prints were across your bottom-cheeks when you went in there, were they, Lesley? That’s the true test of passion — when a man gives you that between your happy-times! Look at the state of those wifely young seat-cheeks, Lesley. Why, you’ve even got bruises on your bruises!’

With her emerging sense of humour, Julie may have exaggerated the truth a little. Yet when Lesley appeared in the doorway, her bridegroom and Julie were engaged in discussion of a certain tropical island where second honeymoons were all the rage — in the Arabian style. Julie was just explaining that no bride considered her wedding-night complete in that part of the world unless her bottom bore the imprints of bamboo next morning — among her other trophies. As Julie added, it was the custom, at breakfast for each bride’s chair to have a thick feather-soft cushion for its seat.

----//----

Julie never knew if the couple took that second honeymoon. She received as a present only a tape-recording. Some lovers, she knew, would act out their fantasies as a radio drama. What a privilege to eavesdrop. She played the tape. A woman’s voice with an accent of the East spoke.

‘Don’t be absurd, Lesley! The doors of the harem open only one way for slave-wives. They admit but they do not release. Ah, yes. Those black stretch-briefs encase your firm hips admirably. Come, Lesley, you surely knew you would have to undress! You took care to put on clean knickers! Now they must come down. Bend, if you please! This will be His Excellency’s favourite view! That firm pale-skinned bottom of yours, Lesley, is what will interest him most of all about you. Why, he will hardly be able to leave it alone! Do not misunderstand me. He is not a mere lecher. No, Lesley! His Excellency is a firm believer in strict discipline. Have you never seen one of these before? Why, the very sight of it makes your backside squirm. Wait until tonight, Lesley! He will keep you busy from dusk until dawn…’

Times were so busy for Julie that she did not realise for another day or so that she had failed to play back the other tapes — those on her answering service — for several weeks. When she did so there was a curious call received the day after Lesley’s chastisement — from a travel agency. It queried the tickets booked for the couple’s Arabian trip. Two tickets for the outward journey — only one coming back?

Julie looked at the tape. The Foreign Office? The Embassy? Interpol? How foolish she would feel! It was only a radio drama, surely? No one would actually do those things — even in harems — would they? That part where the volume seemed to go berserk. The master who had used such invention, set new records of discipline for Lesley’s bottom. All pure fantasy, Julie decided mischievously.

All the same, she settled down to listen to the tape again with a new sense of interest.