Blushing at Both Ends (23 page)

Zip! The garment, helpfully designed for speedy and trouble-free access, fell obligingly apart and slid down the girl's thighs to hang deflated at her knees. Its passing revealed a delectable sight. Roused by the reiterated assault of Bernard's palm, Lenina's blood had rushed defensively into the thousands of tiny capillary veins that wound their delicate tracery through the subcutaneous layer of the lovely buttocks, heating and engorging the tender flesh, suffusing the flawless epidermis. Like a bright flag of submission, a tribute to the effectiveness of his chastisement, a rich warm blush now mantled the whole glorious expanse of her behind, the roseate curves offering an exquisite contrast with the pearly whiteness of her back and thighs. To Bernard,
this
rosy hue only enhanced the natural beauty of Lenina's bottom, making it seem even more enticingly spankable.

Delighted, he resumed her chastisement with increased vigour, relishing the feel of her soft flesh bouncing and quivering beneath his smacks, the crisp clean sound of bare hand meeting bare bottom. With every spank the rubescent glow deepened on the defenceless globes, and Lenina's tearful wails increased in urgency. Her bottom felt as though it were on fire, swollen to twice its normal size, and still the merciless punishment continued.

If Bernard had been asked why he was spanking Lenina, he would have been hard put to frame a coherent reply. He felt no dislike for the girl; on the contrary, he felt fonder of her now than ever before. Nor did he believe that this chastisement would effect any significant change in her behaviour, or that she seriously deserved punishment for mouthing sentiments over which she had little control. His irritation towards her had vanished with the first few strokes, and ever since he had been spanking her for the sheer radiant joy of it.

It felt right. It felt better than right; it felt fulfilling. To hold this lovely girl wriggling and squirming across his lap; to see her hair tossing and her long legs kicking; to spank her hard and steadily, covering every inch of her gratifyingly plump bottom (for she was indeed, as she'd said, awfully pneumatic) with stinging smacks, and hear her gasp and yelp at each stroke; all this felt not just arousing but infinitely satisfying, as satisfying as anything he had ever done.

He could scarcely have guessed that Lenina too, for all her pleas and protests, would come to find it strangely satisfying; nor that, well before her punishment was over, she would start to feel the stirrings of erotic excitement.

So when at last, reluctantly, he stopped spanking her and released her, expecting an outburst of grief or anger or both, he was surprised at her reaction. True, tears stood in her blue eyes and she rubbed ruefully at her richly encrimsoned bottom-cheeks. ‘Oh, Bernard, that was horrid of you! Horrid!' she said, but her tone carried little reproach; and when she knelt unbidden to embrace him there was more passion in her kisses, more intimacy in her caresses, than she had ever shown before.

Some hours later, Bernard once again stood at the hotel window and gazed out at the towers of Santa Fe, now glowing golden like bejewelled rods beneath a sky darkening to indigo. How beautiful they were, he thought. How beautiful everything was.

He and Lenina had made love several times. Twice more, during the course of their play, he had turned her over his lap and spanked her again, reviving the glow that had scarcely faded from her luscious mounds. Each time her protests had seemed less indignant, her pleas for mercy less sincere. Her squeals seemed more an expression of excitement than of pain. On the last occasion, as the spanking mounted in intensity, she had unmistakably started to arch her bottom upwards to meet his hand, as if inciting him to administer further and more severe chastisement.

Now, sated and content, he contemplated the evening sky and listened to Lenina singing in the shower. Bernard smiled as he recognised her favourite erotic ditty. But wasn't there something unfamiliar about the words? He stole over to the bathroom door and listened more closely. A look of astonishment crossed his face.

Something remarkable was occurring. For the first time in her snugly well-ordered life, Lenina Crowne found herself moved to independent thought – and independent creative thought, at that. Unprompted,
uncoerced
, quite unaided by sleep-teaching, she had composed a new verse for her favourite song, and was now happily singing it to herself as the hot water trickled amorously over the curves of her still-smarting rump.

‘Spank me, baby, don't mean maybe,

Spank me till my bottom's glowing,

Turn it red then let's to bed,

Spanking gets me going.'

Smiling, Bernard moved away and lay down on the bed. Putting his hands behind his head, he stretched luxuriously, relishing a new sense of sheer animal well-being. ‘I'm so glad,' he murmured to himself with an ironic grin, ‘I'm so glad I'm a beater.'

14

Heads and Tails

‘DENISE BLACK!' HELEN
Peters's voice rang out across the classroom, shrill with exasperation. ‘Denise, I have
had
it with you! Go and report to the Principal's study –
now
!'

‘
Me
, miss?' Wide-eyed, Denise adopted her most insolent tone of phony innocence. ‘What did
I
do, miss?'

‘You know damn well what you did!' To Denise's delight, the young teacher's voice was close to hysteria. Several of the class giggled audibly. ‘You've been disrupting this class all morning! Now go! Go! NOW!!'

Sighing loudly and theatrically, the pretty blonde sixteen-year-old rose from her desk and slouched slowly towards the door.

‘Stand up straight, girl!' snapped Helen Peters. ‘And get going, will you!'

Denise swapped her slouch for an exaggeratedly sexy slink, wiggling her bottom outrageously. Her classmates responded with more giggles, and a few ironic wolf-whistles. Helen half-rose from her chair. Not for the first time, she regretted that corporal punishment had been banished from the British education system. She longed to land a stinging smack on that impudently gyrating young behind, but contented herself with glaring furiously as Denise left the classroom. The door closed; then the girl's face reappeared in the glass door-panes,
squinting
and tongue stuck out. Squeals of laughter from the class. The teacher made an angry gesture, and the face vanished.

Denise strolled casually along the corridor towards the Principal's study. She was in no hurry. In fact, she was delighted to have been ejected from the class; history was an utter bore, and she'd been trying all morning to provoke Miss Peters into chucking her out.

As for her forthcoming interview with the Head, she felt not the least apprehension. Here at Grove End Sixth Form College, discipline was even more lax than it had been at her secondary school. Dr McMullen was a well-meaning liberal type who believed ‘sympathetic understanding' could work wonders. He'd tut sadly over Denise's misdemeanours, enquire kindly how things were going at home and send her away with a minimal punishment and an exhortation to behave better in future.

I can handle the old fart, no trouble, she thought to herself. He's a pushover. Besides, on the rare occasions when even Dr McMullen's patience had been tried too far, she'd always found that crossing her legs to give him a quick flash of her knickers worked wonders. Well aware of her own adolescent charms, Denise invariably opened an extra button or two on her blouse and wore her dark-blue pleated school skirts at least three inches shorter than the regulations allowed.

Arriving at the Principal's study, she knocked briskly, pushed the door open – and stopped in surprise. In place of the balding bespectacled figure of Dr McMullen, another man altogether was seated behind the desk: a much younger well-built individual who fixed her with a piercing dark-eyed stare.

‘Did I tell you to come in?' he enquired sternly.

‘No – that is – I – n-no, sir,' responded Denise in confusion. ‘I – I was looking for the Head.'

‘I am the Head, for the time being. Dr McMullen was called away earlier. He may not be back for some time. So, in the meantime, I've been asked to stand in for him. My name is Michael Philips; you may call me Mr Philips, or sir. And you are –?'

‘Denise Black, sir,' answered the girl in a respectful voice that she scarcely recognised as her own. There was something disconcerting about this man, with his rugged good looks and confident air, that robbed her of her usual cheekiness. His direct gaze inspired in her a thrill that might have been excitement, or apprehension – or both.

‘Well, Denise, I
didn't
tell you to enter. So now you can go out again, and wait outside until I call you in.'

‘Yes, sir,' she murmured meekly, and obeyed.

Outside in the anteroom she sat down on an upholstered bench. Its cold leather made her very conscious of her bare thighs. For some reason that she couldn't fathom, Denise found herself regretting that her skirt was quite so short. She recalled those cool dark eyes, calmly appraising her. Michael Philips, she suspected, would be anything but a pushover.

In the study, Mike Philips swivelled round and pulled open a filing cabinet. He extracted a file and flicked through it. His lips pursed as he read the contents. Checking back to the first page, he found a number and picked up the phone.

‘Mrs Black? This is Mike Philips, Acting Principal at Denise's college. Yes, that's right: Dr McMullen has been called away. Can you spare me a moment? Thank you.'

Outside, kicking her heels, Denise was regaining her usual cockiness. OK, so this guy was younger and, by the look of him, a lot more clued in than poor dopey old Mullibum. But he was still a man, wasn't he? Standing up, she regarded herself complacently in the mirror, admiring the long coltish legs and fetchingly
nubile
figure. She undid another button on her blouse, then half-turned, noting how the skirt jutted temptingly out over the curves of her cute little bottom. That'll get him, she thought – then jumped as she heard his voice through the study door.

‘Denise, you may come in now!'

He was standing behind his desk, a file in his hand. ‘Close the door, Denise. Sit down. Well, young lady, you're quite the troublemaker, aren't you?' He brandished the file at her.

‘Oh, well, sir, Miss Peters –'

‘Yes, I've read what Miss Peters notes in your file. I've also read what your other teachers have to say. It seems pretty consistent. You're not stupid, Denise – far from it. But you're lazy, impertinent, disobedient, a constant disruptive influence throughout the college. What's more, there are quite a few other girls silly enough to admire you for all this, so you've got your little group of followers and imitators. In fact, the whole thing's getting seriously out of hand. You're sixteen, at a sixth-form college – you should be outgrowing this kind of juvenile idiocy. But it seems you're getting worse. This is the fifth time in two weeks you've been sent to see the Head. Well?'

Too bad he's standing up, Denise thought. He won't get anything like such a good view. Still, what the hell. ‘Oh, sir, it's not fair,' she breathed, dropping her voice half an octave and gazing boldly into his eyes. Slowly, deliberately, she crossed her legs. ‘The teachers pick on me. I think they're just jealous.' Holding his gaze, she pouted appealingly.

At this point, Dr McMullen would have got all flustered and tongue-tied. But Mike Philips simply smiled. It was a smile that said, I know that trick you're pulling, little girl, and it's not going to work; not this time. To her annoyance, Denise found her gaze wavering, then falling, before his cool ironic glance. What's
the
matter with me? she thought – what kind of wimp am I turning into? But there was something scary about this man, with his calm, level tones. Excitingly scary, even – but scary.

‘Jealous, you think? Somehow, Denise, I doubt it. I think they were just doing their best to instil some sense of discipline into you. And discipline, young lady, is what you sorely need. Tell me, what did Dr McMullen do on the many occasions you were sent to see him?'

‘He – he talked to me, sir. Sometimes he gave me detention.'

‘I see. Well, young lady, Dr McMullen's methods may have been admirable in their way – but mine are rather different. While I'm in charge here, there are going to be some radical changes in the way miscreants are dealt with. And you, Denise, will now have the honour of being the first pupil to experience them. Stand up, please.'

Moving round the desk, Mike Philips came and sat down on the upright chair Denise had just vacated. Puzzled, she stood before him. What the hell was he getting at? Suddenly an image flashed into her mind: herself, some years younger, standing in front of her seated father just before he – oh no! A spasm of alarm tingled across her rear end. No, surely he couldn't be meaning to –?

Mike Philips read the girl's expression, the flash of fear in her blue eyes. ‘That's right, Denise,' he said quietly. ‘As from today, I'm reintroducing corporal punishment in this college for cases of serious misbehaviour. You, young lady, are going to be put across my knee and spanked.
Hard
.'

Denise gasped in disbelief. ‘You can't do that!' she exclaimed.

‘Oh, can't I? Well, my girl, you're about to learn otherwise.'

Denise tried to back away, but the desk impeded her path. ‘I'll tell my mother!' she blurted desperately.

Mike Philips smiled. ‘I've just spoken to your mother,' he informed her. ‘She tells me you've been utterly out of control since your father left, and that she can't handle you any longer. She added that, before they split up, your father had a very effective way of dealing with you when you were naughty. Remember what that was?'

‘No!' cried Denise wildly.

‘Really? I think you do, Denise.' His voice slowed, becoming almost hypnotic. ‘I think you remember very well – that when you'd been naughty he used to turn you over his knee, take down your knickers, and spank you. Didn't he, Denise? Spank you long and hard on your bare bottom; spank you until your bottom was bright red and burning hot; spank you until you were a very sore and sorry little girl indeed. Isn't that right?'