Blushing at Both Ends (11 page)

He spoke flippantly, but he was covertly aware of a stirring in his loins. The idea of putting this lovely errant girl across his knee was irresistibly tempting. It was precisely what she deserved – for indolence, for lying to him and, above all, for letting herself down. And she certainly had the ideal physique for it: that bottom so enticingly bared in the punt yesterday had revealed itself as full, flawless and beautifully spankable. Oh, the motivation was there, all right – on both sides. But he would have to play this one very carefully.

Louise grimaced. ‘Oh, I'm sure you're right. I'd have no trouble getting Jake to spank me. But he won't, because he's got no right to – no authority over me. But you have, Abel. You're my tutor, which means you're
in loco parentis
. It says so in the college statutes. And I know damn well what my dad would do, if he knew I was fooling around in punts instead of getting on with my work.'

‘Namely?'

‘Namely – put me across his knee and tan the living daylights out of me.' Inwardly, Louise gasped at her own audacity. The idea of Dr Richard Gray, that most mild and tolerant of men, whaling away at his eighteen-year-old daughter's bottom like some irate Victorian paterfamilias was so outlandish as to be farcical. Luckily Abel was most unlikely to meet him, since he was away on a two-year sabbatical in Auckland.

‘Evidently a man of old-fashioned principles,' Abel observed. ‘And I'm not saying you wouldn't deserve it. But I think you'll find, whatever the college founders may have intended, that these days the phrase
in loco parentis
scarcely covers physical chastisement. Especially not of a female undergraduate by a male tutor. Assault, gross indecency, sexual harassment and several other unpleasant terms are much more likely descriptions.'

‘Only if I complain to someone,' Louise countered. ‘And I shan't. You know I shan't. I mean, why should I? It's what I need to help me work, I'm sure of it. You
did
say you'd help me in any way you could. Well, this is the help I need.
Please
, Abel.'

She gazed at him imploringly, her dark-brown eyes full of entreaty. As if uneasy under the intensity of her regard, Abel got up and stared thoughtfully out of the window. Finally, he turned and looked at her.

‘All right,' he said, ‘I'll do what you want, though I strongly suspect I'm being several kinds of fool. But you needn't look so smug, young lady. There are conditions.

‘First, if I find you've told anybody –
anybody
at all – about this, I'll immediately resign as your tutor on grounds of overload, and have you reassigned to Professor Mulvey.'

He permitted himself a brief grin at her expression of dismay. Angus Mulvey was notorious for giving the most stultifyingly dull and intellectually vapid lectures
in
the entire History Faculty. According to scurrilous rumour, he only retained tenure through the personal intercession of the Vice-Chancellor, following a brief but ecstatic episode of reciprocal sodomy during the 1997 History Summer School in Izmir.

‘Then, whatever Héloise and Abelard may have got up to, all I'm going to do with you is spank you. Just that, and nothing else. Understood?'

Louise nodded. ‘That's OK. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Mary.'

Abel raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh come on, Abel. Everyone knows you two are an item.'

This was true. Indeed, there had been prurient whispers about Abel and Mary Linklater, the most brilliant of his students, even before she graduated two years earlier. She was now a probationary lecturer, having stayed on to complete her PhD, and as such the morality of her exact relationship with her former tutor was of less concern to the college authorities. Still, Abel was under the impression they'd been reasonably discreet. Evidently not, he acknowledged with a wry smile.

‘OK, but it's not only that. You're still an undergraduate –
in statu pupillari
, since you have a taste for clerical dog-latin. As such, I'm supposed to protect you from moral turpitude, not lead you into it. In two years' time, when you've graduated – well, that'll be another matter. But, for the time being, I'll be sailing quite close enough to the wind by spanking you.'

‘One final thing,' he added, fixing her with his gaze. ‘This is intended as discipline, remember, not fun. If all I do is give you the kind of playful spanking I suspect you enjoy, you'll have no incentive to work harder. Rather the reverse, in fact. So I'm warning you now, Louise: what you're asking for is a real discipline spanking – long and hard and painful. Are you sure you can take it? If not, now's your chance to back out.'

Under his dark-eyed stare, Louise felt a thrill of anticipation tingle her rear end. Just what had she let herself in for? Abel always meant what he said: if he told her this spanking was going to hurt, then hurt it would. The memory of watching him playing tennis flashed before her mind's eye. He wasn't the most skilled of players, but his forearm smash was ferocious. At the thought of those sinewy arms administering the same kind of punishment to her soft bottom that he'd been giving the tennis ball, she was seized with a shiver of mingled excitement and terror.

He was right, though. If this treatment was going to be truly effective and give her the vital incentive to work at her best, a really severe spanking was what she badly needed. Besides, how could she back out now? She'd never be able to face him again.

‘All right,' she said in a small voice, her gaze fixed on the carpet, ‘I agree.' She felt her bottom flinch as she spoke.

‘So be it,' Abel said, standing up. ‘Then to start with I'd better sport my oak.' He went and closed the heavy oaken outer door to his rooms that signalled a desire for privacy and also provided excellent sound-proofing; then he shut and locked the inner door. ‘Oh, and close those windows, would you? We don't want your squeals echoing around the quad.'

‘I shan't squeal,' Louise protested even as she obeyed.

‘Don't be so sure, young lady,' he retorted, opening a desk drawer and rummaging inside. ‘Wait until you feel this.'

Louise couldn't repress a gasp of dismay. Abel was holding by its handle an old-fashioned clothesbrush of glossy dark-brown wood, shaped in a long oval. He grinned wickedly at her expression of alarm. ‘Fine specimen, isn't it? Edwardian, probably. The wood matches your hair rather nicely. But I think it'll match your bottom even better.'

‘But – I thought you were going to use your hand!'

‘Oh, I am,' Abel said mildly, ‘to begin with.' Taking her by the wrist, he led her over to the upright chair she'd recently vacated and sat down on it. ‘This –' he deposited the brush on the desk behind him ‘– is for Act Two.'

As if in a dream, Louise felt him unbuckle her belt, unzip her jeans and slide them down to her knees. Then, gently but firmly, he drew her down over his lap. Her stomach fluttered as he settled her across his thighs, her head to the left with her hair brushing the carpet, her long legs stretched out straight and her bottom curved invitingly uppermost, ready to his hand.

Abel gazed with delight at the sweet prospect before him. A triangle of pink nylon panties, discreetly fringed with lace, covered scarcely half the expanse of Louise's shapely rump. Gently, he pushed her T-shirt up past her waist, whose slimness accentuated the swell of her hips, then stroked the luscious mounds. They felt cool, smooth and alluringly soft, trembling at his touch. He was conscious of his erection stiffening in appreciation. This girl would be sheer joy to spank. Was Héloise's bottom anything like as lovely? he wondered. If so, no wonder Abelard was tempted.

‘Very pretty,' he observed, ‘and your choice of underwear is charming. But I think we'll have these clear of the target area, all the same.' Hooking a finger in the waistband of the skimpy briefs, he drew them slowly down over her ripe rearward curves.

Louise shuddered involuntarily as she felt herself denuded of her most intimate garment. The air was cool on her bare and vulnerable bottom, and Abel's left arm held her firmly in position. She was wholly under his control; the thought was scary but strangely comforting, the realisation of her long-cherished fantasy of a punishment deserved and desired, but feared. Peering over her shoulder, she glimpsed his grin of determination and
delight
at the task in hand, and, despite herself, a low moan of apprehension escaped her lips.

‘Right, young lady,' said Abel, raising his open hand, ‘this is what you asked for, so this is what you're going to get. And don't say I didn't warn you if it hurts like hell.'

Taking good aim, he brought his flattened palm down vigorously on the plumpest part of Louise's left bottom-cheek. She gave a sharp intake of breath as its impact stung her tender flesh, and a matching spank, no less hard, connected with her right cheek. Abel paused and watched, enchanted, as twin hand-shapes, pink and distinct, sprang out on the cool white mounds.

Having marked out his territory, he pulled back and for the next few minutes spanked her more lightly, just hard enough to sting, covering the whole adorable target area and relishing the way her soft young bottom-flesh jounced and wobbled beneath his punishing palm. After only a dozen or so smacks, a delicate pink blush mantled the lovely cheeks, gradually deepening to rose-red with each new spank. As the heat built up in her smacked rear end, Louise began to squirm slightly, emitting little mews and whimpers, more to encourage him than from any real discomfort. It was thrilling to lie across Abel's lap, subjected to his will and feeling his hand swatting down on her bare bottom. But at the same time there was a sense of disappointment. This wasn't hurting anything like as much as she'd hoped – and dreaded.

Abel, though, knew just what he was doing. After a few minutes he paused again and stroked the glowing curves, admiring the results of his handiwork. Her bottom felt warm to the touch, and looked even sexier now that it was blushing so prettily.

‘OK, Louise,' he said, ‘that was just by way of a warm-up, to get this lovely bottom into perfect spanking condition. Now your real punishment begins.' Taking a
firmer
grip on her midriff, he began to spank her with the full force of his powerful right arm.

Louise gasped in surprise. She'd never realised how sharply a hard male hand could sting a soft bare female bottom – especially when that bottom had been rendered extra sensitive and tender by a shrewdly administered warm-up. Her fantasy had collided head-on (or should that be rear-on?) with reality, and she wasn't so sure she liked the results. ‘Oww!' she protested, wriggling on his lap. ‘Abel, that really
hurts
! Please, not so hard!'

‘Of course it hurts, silly girl,' he retorted heartlessly, spanking her with gusto. ‘It's
meant
to. This is discipline, remember? To teach you to finish your essay each week as you're supposed to, and not to show up late for my tutorials.' Turning his attention to the soft under-curves of her bottom, he smacked them with wristy sideways swats that made her squirm and yip. ‘From now on, any time you feel tempted to skive off in a punt instead of doing the work you've been set, remember how humiliating it is to be put over my knee and spanked on your bare bottom like a naughty child. Remember how hot and red and sore your bottom is getting – and, believe me, it's going to be a lot redder and sorer before I'm through. And remember that any further indolence, young lady, will put you back across my knee to be spanked twice as hard for twice as long. Understood?' he demanded, with an extra-hard swat.

‘Owww! Yes, Abel! I'm sorry! I'm
really
sorry! Oh, stop, please!'

But Abel was in no mood to stop. Quite apart from anything else, he was enjoying himself far too much. Louise was proving even more deliciously spankable than he'd anticipated; he rejoiced in her yelps and wriggles, and in the soft yieldingness of her sweet quivering flesh-cushions, their whole expanse now suffused with a rich sunset glow.

So, for several more minutes, he hand-spanked her beautiful bottom to his heart's content – now spanking slowly and deliberately, pausing after each stroke to let the sting sink in; now applying a fast hard volley of spanks, twenty or so in quick succession to the same spot, making her yip and writhe frantically. And when at last he stopped, it was only to reach round behind him and pick up the clothesbrush.

Louise, twisting round to see what he was doing, gasped in dismay. She'd been so lost in the agony and the ecstasy of the spanking that she'd forgotten all about the brush. ‘Oh
no
!' she wailed. ‘No, Abel, please don't! I've had enough! My poor bottom's so sore already!
Please
let me off!'

‘Not a chance,' came the pitiless response. ‘The hand-spanking was for neglecting your essays and being late. This is for something much more serious – selling yourself short, wasting your time with dead-end knuckleheads like Jake Manning.' He stroked the back of the brush across her bottom; it felt cool on her blazing cheeks. ‘You deserve better that that, Louise; and you deserve a damn good hiding with this brush to help you realise it. But you've taken your punishment very well so far, so I'll let you off with just fifty strokes. Next time I won't be so lenient.'

Did he say
lenient
? thought Louise, her bottom on fire and her mind in a daze. Well, you asked for it, girl, she told herself ruefully; this'll teach you to play power games with dishy older men. Taking a firm grip on Abel's leg, she awaited the worst.

‘Yee-
OWWWW
!' She'd said she wouldn't squeal, but squeal she did. The biting kiss of the clothesbrush stung fire across her already well-spanked bottom, its broad oval length catching both cheeks at once. And she continued to squeal, her dark tousled hair tossing and her legs kicking madly, as the hard wood cracked down again and again on her anguished bottom-cheeks,
turning
them from scarlet to a rich deep crimson, until the heat and exquisite hurt of it took her and lifted her to some place she had never been before. When the spanking finally stopped she scarcely seemed to notice, but lay limp as a rag-doll over Abel's knee, gasping and whimpering, entirely passive.