Blushing at Both Ends (5 page)

‘Once more, Jane,' said he, ‘I must confess you surprise me. So meek and sober is your everyday garb, I had not thought it to conceal such voluptuousness of form. Rarely have I seen a bottom more perfectly shaped to receive a sound spanking. For a sound spanking is what you deserve, young lady, do you not?'

If I demurred, would he remit my punishment? I suspected not. In any case, I could not find it in me to dissent. The sentence was just, even lenient, inexpressibly humiliating though it was to be turned over Mr Rochester's knee like an errant child, and to have my bare posteriors exposed to his eye and punitive hand.

Yet at the same time there was a strange delight in feeling myself held and controlled so masterfully by a man to whom I was not indifferent. Also I sensed that there was affection behind his sternness; that he would not have chosen so intimate and parental a form of punishment had he not cared for me a little.

Accordingly, I replied, ‘Yes, sir. I have transgressed, been thoughtless, and a chastisement is the least I deserve. But I beg you will not be overly severe on me, or hurt me too much.'

‘Fear not, Jane, I shall be merciful. It will sting; of course it will; what would be the use of a spanking that did not? But I shall not hurt you more than you can bear. Tomorrow morning you may feel the need to seat yourself with a trifle more circumspection than usual,
but
it will be no worse than that. And now, young lady, enough talk. Your punishment begins.'

So saying, he raised his hand high in the air. A keen thrill of fear and excitement ran through me. The next moment I could not forbear to gasp as a crisp smack stung my rearward mounds, swiftly followed by another; then by countless more, spank raining down upon ringing spank, until all my hinder parts seemed suffused by a fiery flagrant glow.

That this glow of warmth was matched by the heightened colour of the spanked cheeks I could have surmised for myself, but my chastiser took cruel delight in appraising me of the visible effects of his attentions to my unlucky person. ‘I am gratified to see, Jane,' said he, even as he continued his assaults upon my trembling flesh, ‘that already you begin to blush for your misdeeds – and very prettily too. But I fear you must come to blush more vividly yet, before you have been fittingly requited for your wanton curiosity.'

At this, he increased the force and frequency of his strokes, igniting fresh fires in my anguished nether regions. Since I acknowledged the justice of my punishment, I had intended to endure it in stoic silence, but in the event it was more than I could do to prevent myself crying out.

‘Oh sir,' I cried, ‘pray spare me! Oh! Ah! No more, I beg you! Ow! My bottom is aflame! Ah! Did you not promise me mercy? No more, for pity's sake! Ow! Oh! I am truly sorry!'

Abandoning all thought of stoicism, I writhed and squirmed on his lap, trying desperately to escape the stinging slaps that seared my ever more tender
derrière
. But my pleas, and my contortions, were equally in vain. Mr Rochester's powerful left arm held me fast by the waist, while his no less formidable right arm rose and fell in a steady rhythm, administering merciless punishment to my smarting hindquarters.

‘Sorry, are you, young lady?' he muttered. ‘Aye, no doubt you are, and shall be more so yet. I warrant you'll sleep face-down tonight, my inquisitive Jane.'

But at length he paused, and I thought my ordeal was over. He released me, and I regained my feet – shakily enough, in all conscience. Alas, there was further torment yet to come: to my horror I saw Mr Rochester reach for the riding crop where it lay idle on the bed. I found I could not speak; my breath came in convulsive gulps, close to sobs; but my eyes and my posture must have spoken eloquently of my dismay, for he smiled – a smile strangely compounded of cruelty and tenderness.

‘We come now to the finishing touch, Jane,' said he, ‘a measure intended to impress this lesson most ineradicably upon your . . . memory. Kneel over the bed, please, and present your bottom for the crop.'

I stammered some form of protest, but he merely gestured impatiently to the bed, flicking the crop in a way scarcely calculated to allay my fears. Nonetheless, I obeyed, feeling myself wholly subjected to his will and, moving as if in a dream, assumed the posture he had specified. One small portion of my mind objected indignantly, demanding whether I had not taken leave of my senses, but so drained was I of all energy by the spanking I had undergone that resistance was quite beyond my capacities. Nor could I conceal from myself that there was a wild perilous sweetness in such utter submission.

So I knelt there as he bid me, meekly presenting myself for further chastisement, and felt him once more lift back the robe to expose my glowing posteriors, whose hue, I suspected, must now surpass that of the ill-fated corset that moulded them so invitingly. I trembled with apprehension as Mr Rochester laid the cool thin length of the crop across my heated flesh: glancing over my shoulder, I saw him take a pace back, raising his arm high in the air.

‘Six strokes, Jane,' came his voice. ‘Take them well, and it will all be over.'

The next instant it was as if a bar of white-hot steel had seared across my ill-used hinderparts. A scream pierced the room, and it was a moment before I realised that it was I who had uttered it. Tears welled in my eyes, and in my agony I had but one consolation: that my bedchamber was sufficiently removed from those of the Hall's other residents to be beyond their earshot.

Five more times the dreaded crop whistled down, and five times I shrieked in anguish. But somehow I maintained the recipient posture, desperately though I longed to leap up and clap my hands to the afflicted parts. Then – oh blessed moment! – I felt Mr Rochester's arm raise me up and enfold me to him, and I sobbed out my pain and penitence against his manly bosom.

‘Well done, Jane,' he murmured, gently stroking my hair. ‘You took your punishment in exemplary fashion. It's all over; the account is settled. Let this night's doings remain a secret between us.'

It was some minutes before I could respond; but at last the sobs abated, and I disengaged myself from his embrace and stepped back. ‘Thank you, sir,' said I, though my voice still trembled. ‘I deserved correction, and you have dealt with me justly. I hope you will always do so.'

‘No resentments, Jane?'

‘None, sir.'

‘Good; then I shall take my leave.' He paused, and added with an ironic look, ‘But before I go, perhaps you had best divest yourself of that corset and entrust it to my keeping. Now that your secret weakness is known to me, I shall consider it my duty to shield you from temptation as far as may be.'

Once more, he discreetly turned his back while I doffed the incriminating garment, rueing the moment I
set
eyes on it and heartily wishing I might never see it again; I resumed my sober night-robe and handed Mr Rochester the corset. He took it, briefly caressing its roseate silk, then bade me goodnight.

‘Goodnight, sir,' I replied. ‘And rest assured, I shall never again presume to touch the garments worn by your late wife.'

Mr Rochester paused in the doorway. ‘By my late wife?' he enquired. A strange indecipherable smile played over his saturnine features. ‘By my late wife?' he repeated. ‘Oh no, my dear Jane, you misapprehend. By
me
.'

4

In the Red

‘I'VE COME TO
see Mr Daniels, please,' Susie Redwood told the bank clerk. ‘I've got an appointment.'

It wasn't an appointment she was at all keen to keep. In the two years since Susie had moved to London, her financial affairs had slid ever closer to catastrophe. It wasn't that she was poorly paid – anything but. Her work at the advertising agency earned her a handsome salary, with – since Susie was good at her work – generous bonuses. As a single girl she had no dependants or commitments. In theory, she should have been able to live well, indeed, very well, and still save a substantial part of each month's salary.

But living and working so near to the fabulous fashion stores of the West End was, for someone like Susie, a fatal temptation. She'd developed a serious shopping habit, and the wardrobes in her smart Regent's Park flat were crammed with items she'd just
had
to have – and had then worn maybe once. Expensive items, too. Susie had excellent taste but – in financial terms – terrible judgement. As her bank balance, now deeply in the red, and her monthly credit-card statements showed all too clearly.

It didn't help that Susie had grown up the only child of indulgent parents who had denied her nothing. Though too sweet-natured to be described as a spoilt
bitch
, she'd certainly got used to feeling she was entitled to have anything she wanted, without question. But since the sudden death of her father two years earlier, and the downturn in the stock market, that reassuring parental back-up was no longer available. Susie, however, kept right on behaving as though it was.

And now things had reached crisis point. She was several months behind with her rent –flats overlooking Regent's Park didn't come cheap – and the monthly interest on her credit cards was mounting horrendously. And then had come the letter from her bank. Had Miss Redwood noticed, it enquired politely, that she was now more than £3,000 overdrawn – an overdraft which she had neglected to pre-arrange with the bank?

Of course, thought Susie – the bank! Why hadn't she thought of it before? She would ask the bank for a loan! That was what banks were there for, after all, wasn't it?

But the bank, when she applied to them, proved strangely reluctant to advance her the £10,000 she asked for, not without further discussion. It wasn't, the young woman she spoke to patiently explained, quite as simple as that. Perhaps she would care to make an appointment with the manager, Mr Daniels?

So here Susie was, fetchingly turned out in a frilly blouse and a skirt that stopped just short of her dimpled knees. The effect was charming, if just a touch girlish. This was deliberate. Susie looked young for her age, but she wasn't naive, and she'd noticed that a hint of girlish helplessness worked very well on men somewhat older than her – as, she imagined, this Mr Daniels would probably be.

She was right about that. Matthew Daniels, it turned out, was probably around fifty – a sturdy well-built man, with a distinguished hint of grey about the temples. He received her courteously, with a friendly smile, but there was something steely in his glance that told her she had better be honest and open with this
man
. He wasn't, she suspected, someone it would be at all wise to lie to.

So when he asked her what precisely she wanted her £10,000 loan for, Susie abandoned all her planned fictions about ‘business opportunities' and confessed she needed the money to pay off her debts. And very soon she found herself telling this calm fatherly man with the shrewd eyes and friendly smile just how she'd accumulated those debts, and how whatever she did she seemed quite unable to get them under control. And then, utterly to her surprise and humiliation, she found she was starting to cry.

Matthew Daniels pushed a box of tissues tactfully in Susie's direction (for bank managers, like therapists, always need to have tissues to hand), then sat back and studied her as she blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes. What a pretty, appealing, self-indulgent little girl she was. For in many ways she
was
still a little girl, proceeding heedlessly on her way with no thought of the consequences. She reminded him of his youngest and prettiest daughter, Jilly – but Jilly at fourteen, not the bright, independent 23-year-old she now was.

With her father's help, Jilly had learnt self-discipline. And perhaps, using similar methods, he could help the lovely Miss Susie Redwood learn the same lesson. It would certainly be very pleasant indeed to try . . .

As Susie composed herself, Matthew leant forwards and spoke seriously. ‘Well, Miss Redwood, I'd like to thank you for being so frank with me. In return, I'm going to be equally frank with you. There's no way, I'm afraid, that the bank can lend you £10,000.'

Susie gazed at him, wide-eyed with dismay. ‘Oh, but – but –' she stammered.

‘I'm very sorry, but how can we? Against what collateral? A wardrobe full of designer outfits and a mountain of debt? Why, my directors would have a fit at the very idea. No, it's out of the question.'

He sat back and let the bad news sink in. Susie sat dejected, her bright hopes punctured.

‘However,' he continued, ‘that doesn't mean nothing can be done for you. This bank's been around for a long time – two hundred years or more – and we didn't survive by abandoning our customers to their fates. Even when –' he gave her an ironic grin ‘– those fates were largely self-inflicted. I'm sure we can help you put your affairs in order.'

Susie brightened visibly. Though there was little physical similarity, this man reminded her strongly of her father in his reassuring confident manner. Throughout her childhood, her daddy had always been there for her, always able to put things right.

‘Two things to begin with, Miss Redwood,' Matthew proceeded. ‘All these fabulously expensive designer clothes you've been splashing out on – most of them, you say, worn no more than once. They must still have considerable resale value. I have a friend in the fashion world. I suggest that you let her help you slim your wardrobe down by say eighty per cent, and get you the best possible price for those you relinquish.

‘Second, that apartment. It sounds delightful – but right now it's way beyond your means. With luck, the sale of the clothes will pay off what you owe in rent. Once that's done, and you've found somewhere less extravagant, we can start considering how best to pay off your credit-card debts – and the bank's overdraft, of course.'

Poor Susie looked about to weep again. ‘But where shall I live?' she wailed. ‘Anywhere in central London's bound to be expensive – and if I move further out, my travel costs will be terrible. I'll
never
get it all paid off!'