Over the Knee (6 page)

His office was strikingly different from my headmaster’s. Gloomy and dark, with dusty teetering stacks of books on every surface. Light struggled in through the window blinds to lie on the floor like distorted ribbons. Father Michael sat behind a huge oak desk and he looked up as I entered.

‘Close the door,’ he said. He had the authoritative voice of a general. Deep and booming in the cramped little cell.

I pushed the door shut and stood in front of him, clasping my hands behind me. I wore a short red tartan kilt with black over-the-knee socks. A generous expanse of thigh showed between the hem of the skirt and the tops of my socks. He was bound to disapprove.

‘So, my child, you have sinned and you came to me for forgiveness. Is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘But forgiveness requires penance, does it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever been punished?’ he asked.

‘Punished?’

‘Spanked.’

The simple sound of the word sent shivers through me. I had been waiting for this for so long. A week ago I could have answered him honestly. But then, that hadn’t been a punishment. ‘No,’ I whispered, adding ‘sir’ out of habit.

‘I’m not a schoolmaster,’ he said tersely. ‘You may address me as “Father”.’

‘Yes, Father,’ I corrected, already beginning to squirm.

He sat studying me for several intolerable seconds before standing up. The ancient chair shrieked in protest. As he moved closer I fought the urge to take a step back. He was tall and imposing. The immaculate white dog collar stood out in stark contrast to the austere black cassock, enhancing the formality of the situation. Father Michael’s face bore the deep lines of one who has spent a lifetime in grim contemplation. Mr Chancellor had been hard enough to cheek; there was no way I could be anything but respectful with Father Michael.

‘What is your name?’

I stammered it out. ‘Angie.’

His eyes glinted, though not with humour. ‘Are you nervous, Angela?’

I winced at the use of my full name. ‘Yes, sir – Father. I am.’

‘Good. Punishment
should
be feared, if it is to act as a deterrent.’

I looked down at the floor, chewing my lip.

‘Do you accept my punishment?’

‘Yes, Father.’ My words were barely audible.

‘Then ask me for it.’

I flushed so deeply my ears burnt. It was more than I was prepared for. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t form the words. At last I choked out what I thought he wanted to hear.

‘Please punish me, Father.’

‘How?’ he persisted sternly.

I lowered my head even further. I had never actually said the word aloud to anyone. ‘Spank me.’

‘And why do you need to be spanked?’

‘Because I’m a dirty little girl.’ Saying the words to a priest made my legs weak and I longed for a chair to sink into. Now that I’d asked for it I was having second thoughts. I was in over my head. This wouldn’t be a gentle, erotic scene like I’d had with Paul. Father Michael was going to spank me hard and it was going to hurt. The old maxim about being careful what you wished for was about to be demonstrated. But it was too late to chicken out now.

Father Michael watched the play of emotions on my face with satisfaction. Then he moved away. He took a straight-backed chair from the wall near the tiny window and placed it in the centre of the room. He sat down with the air of one accustomed to ceremony and ritual in all things.

‘Very well, Angela,’ he said, as though pronouncing sentence. ‘Come here.’ He indicated the spot to his right, exactly where Paul had made me stand.

I forced my feet to comply, painfully aware of the tremor in my gait, as though I’d just run a marathon.

‘Your profligate behaviour is disgusting,’ he said with vehemence. ‘And it must stop. It shows a childish lack of regard for consequences and will only lead you to damnation. You must learn to resist the temptations of the flesh.’

With that he pulled me down across his lap.

I uttered a little squeak of surprise and embarrassment, but didn’t fight him. I rested my hands on the carpet and straightened my legs behind me so that only my toes were touching the floor. The position made me feel intensely vulnerable and childlike.

Father Michael placed his left hand in the small of my back and without another word he brought his right hand down on my skirt with a muffled thump. It didn’t hurt at all. He smacked me several more times, but the woolly tartan offered too much protection.

He stopped.

‘For this to have any effect,’ he began slowly. ‘You need to have less protection.’

I made a mournful protesting sound, but I didn’t resist as his fingers dragged the tartan kilt up over my bottom. He exposed the frilly French knickers that barely covered my cheeks, revealing more than they concealed. I trembled in the silence. I knew how alluring my bottom must look, with the lower half of it on display and his distaste was unmistakable.

‘Even for confession,’ he said. ‘You wear the garments of a whore.’

Quietly thanking God I hadn’t worn a thong, I took hold of the chair leg as I felt his hand rise again.

He brought it down hard, with a resounding smack. I yelped. But before I could process the sensation he smacked me on the other cheek. Again and again his hand connected with the smooth skin of my bottom, the smacks ringing out in the dim poky office.

I struggled and writhed over his lap, crying out at the stinging pain. I arched my back, but he pushed me down firmly and carried on. This was not play. It hurt much more than I had thought it would. Father Michael laid on with a will, alternating from cheek to cheek, peppering the whole of my bottom with brisk smacks. As the knickers left my lower cheeks uncovered he aimed most of the blows on the bare flesh. And he didn’t neglect the tender crease where my thighs joined my bottom.

I twisted from side to side, but there was no escape. A stack of leaflets lay on the floor in front of me and I tried to focus on them to distract myself from the pain. But the spanking was too intense. In desperation I flung my right arm behind me, but he simply clamped my wrist against my lower back, smacking me even harder.

It was exactly what I had always wanted. And now all I wanted was for it to stop. It was too much. There was nothing enjoyable or pleasurable about it at all. It was intensely painful. But I was helpless to escape it. I heard myself yelping and begging him to stop, but he had no pity for me.

‘No, young lady,’ he said over the unrelenting cadence. ‘I will not stop. You agreed to this. It’s intended to hurt because it’s intended to teach you a lesson. One you won’t forget.’

‘But I’ve learnt it!’ I cried. ‘I’m sorry!’

‘You’re sorry it hurts,’ he corrected me. ‘But you’re not contrite. I have no intention of stopping until you feel genuinely remorseful.’

The words filled me with horror. Remorse for what? A fabricated affair? I kicked wildly, howling with pain. I could almost see my bottom turning from pink to red to purple as his hand rained merciless blows on it. There was no escape.

I heard myself pleading, promising, cajoling. Anything to make it stop. Tears pricked my eyes and, just when I thought I couldn’t possibly take any more, a strange thing happened. I flashed back to an incident from my first year at university. A time when I had felt overwhelming guilt and no one to confess it to.

I’d been out clubbing with my best friend Diane and her new boyfriend, Nikolai. He was from Moscow and spoke almost no English. But there was a forthright intensity about him that fascinated me. I listened, transfixed, to his rich lyrical language as he talked to Diane in Russian and she translated for me. I couldn’t help seeing him through the obsessive veil of my fetish, which cast him as a KGB officer and had him inflict creative tortures on me. His large hands were
made
for smacking a girl’s bottom. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. And, as the evening wore on, it became clear that he felt much the same about me. And Diane – sweet, naive, trusting Diane – was oblivious to the sparks.

As the night wore on and we got drunker and drunker, my resolve weakened unforgivably and I fell into bed with him that same night – while poor Diane was asleep in the next room. He murmured incomprehensible Russian to me while I drowned in wicked fantasies that would probably have horrified him. He was a rough selfish lover and he left me feeling cheap and dirty as he slipped away, back to bed
with
my friend. Unsatisfied, I had no choice but to get myself off. The shame only enhanced my climax.

Diane never accused me outright, but I could tell by her eyes that she knew what we’d done. We drifted apart not long after that and I never saw her or Nikolai again.

I had forgotten all about the incident. I’d felt terrible at the time, but I’d moved on. Now it was all I could think of as I gasped out apology after apology. I’d found a hidden pocket of guilt, a dirty little secret that needed purging. The tears began to spill down my cheeks and I surrendered to the release. I deserved this.

I was unaware when the spanking finally stopped.

I lay over Father Michael’s knees, sobbing convulsively. Gradually I became aware of his hand on my back, stroking me gently. Comforting me. The unexpected tenderness released another flood of emotion and he gathered me on to his lap, letting me soak his cassock with my tears.

When I was finally able to calm myself, I looked at him in bewilderment, sniffling like a little girl. His expression had softened and his eyes crinkled in a slight smile.

He offered me a handkerchief and I took it gratefully, wiping my eyes and blowing my nose loudly.

‘Do you feel better?’ he asked.

Disoriented, I nodded. ‘Uh-huh.’

I felt as though I had dived off a cliff and abandoned myself to the reality of death only to discover that I could fly. My body felt lighter and the pain in my bottom had shaded into a tingling pleasant warmth.

I left the church in a daze, marvelling at the experience and the intensity of my response. The spanking was nothing like I’d expected. I had genuinely hated every minute of it, but now that it was over it was all I could think about. My backside was still smarting, a constant reminder. Confused thoughts and emotions whirled round in my mind, dancing just beyond the reach of reason.

I knew instinctively that if he hadn’t held me while I wept it would have been traumatic for me. It had signalled an end to the punishment and reassured me that I was
forgiven
. I had let down my walls and let him inside my head. I had been completely vulnerable and exposed and he had not abused my trust.

No other form of punishment could ever reach me as deeply as the spanking had. Tedious impositions and detentions had never touched the emotional core. There was no surrender there, no submission to caring authority. And, most of all, no intimacy. That was the key.

The sexual escapade with Paul hadn’t had the depth of what I’d just shared with Father Michael. And yet there had been nothing sexual about this spanking at all. It was pure punishment. Why, then, was I so aroused now that it was over?

As soon as I got home I yanked up my skirt to see my bottom in the mirror. It was glowing red and sore to the touch, speckled with tiny purplish bruises from particularly hard smacks. His fingertips. Eager to experience the sensation fully, I sat on a hard wooden chair, wincing at the sting. It hurt to sit. Overcome with the joy of my discovery, I felt my eyes begin to water again. I had entered a strange and wonderful place and there was no going back.

The euphoric awareness was like an alternate reality. I felt lighter, as though I could fly. I could only compare it to descriptions I’d read about spiritual epiphanies. My insides burnt with a strange new fire and I wanted to share my discovery with the world. But there was no one I could tell, no one who would understand.

Suddenly my racy thesis seemed colourless and uninspired. Perhaps I could ask Dr Morrison about incorporating an experiential element. Field research. He would probably just nod distractedly, as if I’d suggested using Century Schoolbook instead of Times New Roman.

Still high on endorphins, I climbed into bed. I closed my eyes and replayed the afternoon as my fingers crept inside my pyjamas. Now that I’d been punished, I could allow myself some pleasure. It only took a few skilful swirls of my finger to bring me to a shattering climax.

The crash came the next morning and tore the bottom out of my heart.

Five

MY SLEEP WAS
disordered and fitful. When I woke, the pillow was soaked with tears. I’d been crying in my sleep and waking hadn’t made it stop. Even the lullaby of the shipping forecast, usually so soothing and reassuring, had lost its power to comfort me. My head felt heavy and there was a rolling, queasy feeling when I tried to move.

I couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do anything. The high was gone and in its place was an oppressive leaden weight. I had felt complete. Connected at last in a real way to the elusive conflicted part of me. Now there was only a cold aching void.

All I could think about was Father Michael. I heard his voice in my head and felt his hand on my bottom. Cold rain streamed over the windowpanes like a mockery of my tears.

I moped around, in mourning for the profound intimacy I’d experienced. It wasn’t sexual; it was something I couldn’t define. But the ephemeral bond had taken me to a fantastic height and then forsaken me at its apex. It was all downhill from there.

The marks lasted a week. I examined them every day, replaying the confession and penance again and again in my mind, yearning for more. Gradually, they began to fade and with them went my inconsolable mood. It had happened once; it could happen again. I wondered how long I should wait before going back to St James’s. How soon would be too soon? I didn’t want to put him wise to
my
game, but I needed what he could give me the way a junkie needs a pusher.

Desperation finally gave me the motivation I needed. But not to see the priest. I understood now that this wasn’t just a frivolous quirk; it was something I couldn’t live without. And I couldn’t possibly be the only one who felt this way.