The Carrot and the Stick (8 page)

But it was beyond her or anyone's control. Three things happened at once. The cane landed with the cruellest stripe yet, Richard exploded, shooting his warm, sticky fluid deep down the girl's throat, and Beth herself - oh, blessed relief - felt a complementary explosion deep inside herself, starting from her womb and running up to her breasts and down her thighs. She fell limply to the floor, her body quivering and drops of Richard's creamy ejaculation on her lips and chin.

‘You disobeyed me!' Helen roared. ‘You'll pay for that.' She looked down upon Beth and her anger flared.

‘Look at her, Richard.' He opened one eye. ‘Look at her. She enjoyed it. She cheated us. She actually got off on me beating her.'

Helen lashed out again with the cane, catching Beth a cruel blow across the back of her thighs just where the moist lips of her sex peeped between. Another smaller paroxysm convulsed Beth's body, the aftershock of the tremors before.

Then the passion of Helen's disturbing anger changed to cold calculation. ‘For now,' she announced primly, ‘I am going to punish you by not punishing you any more.'

But Beth was past hearing or caring.

 

 

 

‘Why do so many men like to spank a girl's bottom?' Beth asked. As soon as she had asked the question, though, she was swamped in confusion. She had not planned to ask it. It just came out.

The female psychiatrist smiled. The question was unexpected, but the answer was ready. That was what being a professional shrink was all about, the quick and facile answer no matter how surprising or shocking the question.

‘Could it be that they are angry with women?' the psychiatrist asked.

Beth had started to see Dr Susskind immediately after her promotion. It was her reward to herself, a status symbol, a following of fashion. Now that she had a high-powered, stressful job, did not she, like everyone else in her shoes, deserve the mandatory weekly session with a shrink?

That was how it started, but Beth had come to value their regular sessions. Nothing of much consequence was said, but Beth learned to enjoy the quiet concentration on her, and the things that mattered to her, for an hour at a time, the opportunity to speak only about her free of the charge of egotism, and the chance to speak her mind and vent her frustrations. Sixty pounds a time was a small price to pay for such luxury. With the psychiatrist's gentle probing, she found the session helped to clear her mind. They had developed a genuine rapport. At the end of each hour, Beth had refreshed her sense of priorities. She found she felt better even though she had not necessarily felt bad beforehand.

‘Seriously, let me answer your question initially with another question of my own,' the psychiatrist replied. ‘Why do you ask? Has someone been spanking your bottom?'

Beth reddened. ‘Maybe,' she muttered after a pause.

The psychiatrist leaned forward and switched off the tape recorder on the desk. ‘Let me remind you, Beth, that everything we discuss here is confidential. I would not have it any other way. Anything you say will not go beyond these four walls. Now, have you been spanked recently?'

Beth stuck out her lower lip. ‘Answer my question first. Why
do
so many men like to spank a girl's bottom?'

Dr Susskind smiled at her determination. ‘First it is a question of aesthetics. The female bottom is the most beautiful, the most perfect part of the human anatomy, beloved by sculptors, painters, poets and lechers alike. Secondly, think of where it is situated, of its neighbours. It is the portal to paradise for most males, the entrance to the hidden chambers of pleasure.'

Beth nodded. ‘But why spank it? Why not just kiss it, or lick it? Why not love it?'

‘That is where aesthetics meet the id, the male id,' the psychiatrist said. ‘It is to do with power and dominance. The priapic male is the hunter, the submissive female the victim, the more submissive the better.'

‘Oh,' Beth said, disappointment in her voice. ‘Is that all it is?'

‘Don't underestimate it, Beth,' Dr Susskind said. ‘The urge to chastise girls is very strong in the male of the species. It may be a private and personal compunction or pastime but it comes into the open time and time again. You're too young to remember the spanking colonel.'

Beth looked puzzled.

‘A few years ago,' the psychiatrist went on, ‘some old buffer with a boat on the Thames. He used to entice girls on board and spank their bare bottoms. One silly girl complained. It got tremendous publicity. Everyone loved reading about it. A lot of people could see nothing wrong in what he did.'

Beth giggled.

‘And there's Hazlitt. William Hazlitt, the essayist two hundred years ago.' Dr Susskind looked enquiringly and Beth nodded, reminding herself to look up the name later. ‘A most respected and respectable man. He was sitting by himself in a meadow in the Lake District, no doubt deep in profound thought, when a pert local village girl went by. He must have been overcome by an irresistible urge. In a trice he had her over his lap with her skirts up and was spanking her bottom. There was quite a scandal. Hazlitt returned to London that night.'

Beth laughed. ‘She must have been surprised. I must read Hazlitt.'

‘Surprised, no doubt. Hurt, probably. And young, almost definitely.'

‘What makes you say that?' Beth asked.

‘Only the very young or stupid would make a hullabaloo in a situation like that.'

‘What do you mean?' Beth asked, feeling indignant on the girl's behalf. ‘He might have hurt her.'

‘True,' the psychiatrist said. ‘But the first rule of being a female, especially a young and poor female, is that if you have something that a powerful man wants, you don't make a row and scare him away, you milk it for all it's worth. Just think what she might have got out of Hazlitt. Even a few sovereigns at worst would have been better than a scandal, and probably another beating from her father.'

Beth nodded knowingly, encouraging the psychiatrist to continue.

‘Think of a word you like,' the psychiatrist said.

‘What do you mean?' Beth asked, puzzled.

‘Think of a word you like. That you like the sound of, or the meaning of.'

‘Lullaby,' Beth said. ‘I like lullaby.'

The psychiatrist nodded. ‘Lullaby. Yes, that's a pretty word. What does it mean to you?'

‘Peace and serenity,' Beth said. ‘Love and warmth.'

The psychiatrist nodded again. ‘Now think of a word that you find sexy, a turn on.'

Beth thought for a moment. ‘Lingerie,' she said, with a giggle. ‘Lacy knickers. Suspenders. Low cut bras.'

Dr Susskind smiled and nodded in approval. ‘Now can you think of a word that might turn men on, that they find sexy?'

Beth shook her head. ‘I honestly have no idea.'

‘Spanking,' Dr Susskind said. ‘That is a trigger word for many males. Spanking. To spank. A good spanking.' Beth listened wide-eyed as the psychiatrist continued. ‘The word turns them on. The thought turns them higher. And the act... ah, the act turns them to white heat.'

‘I think I like the sound of it too,' Beth said, blushing slightly. She held her head to one side as if thinking. ‘To be given a good spanking,' she said, rolling the words around in her mouth. ‘Naughty girls like me deserve to be spanked, and spanked hard.' She flashed a sudden smile at the psychiatrist. ‘Yes, I like it too. There is a definite frisson.'

The psychiatrist nodded again. ‘The word, and the deed, are perfect for the rampant male. In a punishment situation, the male thinks he has the whip hand. But he hasn't. In reality it is the chastised female who is the powerful one, not the lustful male who seeks nothing but sensual and sexual satisfaction.'

Beth was puzzled. ‘Because she has what he wants?'

‘Yes, and because she will always have it and he will always want it,' Dr Susskind said. ‘If you answer my question I'll let you into a secret.'

‘What question?'

‘Have you been spanked?'

Beth nodded. ‘Yes,' she admitted quietly.

‘Recently?'

She nodded again. ‘Yesterday. Now what's the secret?'

‘It's pretty obvious really, but it is something in my job I know for a fact.' Beth sat forward eagerly, hanging on every word. ‘There are far more men in the world who want to spank a girl's bottom than there are girls who want or are prepared to be spanked.'

Dr Susskind saw the disappointed look on Beth's face. ‘Think about it; think what it means.'

Beth nodded and was silent for a moment. Then she spoke hesitantly, ‘What happens if a girl actually likes it?'

‘What happens in what way?' Dr Susskind asked. ‘It makes her all the more powerful.'

‘But what happens physically? Why should I... why should a girl actually like it?'

Dr Susskind studied the girl for a moment before answering. ‘Come over here, Beth. I will show you.'

Almost as if she was mesmerised, Beth found herself getting up. She knew she was incapable of refusing Dr Susskind; you don't pay sixty pounds an hour and then ignore the instructions or advice. And anyway, Dr Susskind was an imposing, almost frightening woman, twice Beth's age but slender and well groomed, smart of dress and smarter of mind, not someone to be lightly disobeyed.

Dr Susskind pushed her chair back from her desk as Beth approached. ‘Slip off your skirt and knickers; we don't want them getting in the way,' she said briskly. ‘And don't be shy; we're all girls here. You can keep the rest on, we don't want you getting cold.'

When Beth was naked between the bottom of her short lilac jumper and the top of her stockings, pinched up by suspenders, the psychiatrist patted the desk in front of her. ‘Lean over this,' she said. ‘Rest your head on it.'

With her head down and her legs straight, Beth's bottom was beautifully presented to the seated psychiatrist. Beth heard her chair creak as the older woman leaned forward and studied it carefully like an unexpected and exotic Christmas present.

‘Well,' Dr Susskind said eventually, ‘you didn't have to answer my question. I can see you have been both spanked and caned in the last few days.'

Beth nodded, but when she realised the woman might not see the response, she muttered, ‘Yes.'

‘It must be sore.'

‘Yes, it is a little.'

‘Open your legs wider,' Dr Susskind said seductively, and Beth obeyed, leaning forward as she did so. At this, she knew the lips of her sex came more into view and she heard the psychiatrist swallow as she studied the beauty so readily presented to her.

‘Let me ask you a question,' Dr Susskind said. ‘Think carefully before you answer. Did you enjoy it, being spanked and caned?'

For the third time, Beth said yes. ‘Not at the time maybe, but soon afterwards.'

‘Did you enjoy it very much? So much that it helped you to orgasm?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you actually climax while you were being punished?'

‘Yes,' for the fifth time.

‘You are a very unusual girl. Shall I tell you why - why you enjoyed it?' But before Beth could answer, Dr Susskind held her hips. ‘Better still, let me show you.' She gently pulled the girl back and placed her over her lap, and slid one hand between her legs to open them as they had been before.

That moment, as she slipped into place over Dr Susskind's lap, was a timeless one for Beth, one of those moments in life when one is at peace with the world and content with one's place in it. She had been there before, she was there now, and she would be there again in the future. The position was right, the exposure of her most intimate parts to an older, wiser person was right, her total defencelessness was right. The rough tweed of Dr Susskind's skirt tickled her lower belly and tugged gently at her pubic hair. The psychiatrist's fingers lightly caressed the soft, marked flesh of her buttocks. Beth felt the warmth of the older woman's body suffusing her loins, sending messages of lazy comfort to her brain. Her eyes filled with tears, she was so happy. If only this moment of total surrender could last forever.

When Dr Susskind spoke again it was as if her voice came from far away. ‘You think it is all to do with this.' As she spoke, Dr Susskind drew a painted fingernail against the moist lips of Beth's sex, and the girl shivered. ‘Or even this,' the psychiatrist said, continuing the line of the fingernail up the valley between Beth's buttocks, lingering momentarily on the rosebud so invitingly exposed.

‘But it's not, you know.' She slapped Beth's buttocks. ‘It's not here, but here.' With her left hand she caressed Beth's hair. ‘It's in the mind.'

Dr Susskind pinched one of the bruises on Beth's bottom and Beth squealed lightly, a squeal that became a sigh.

‘When you're hurt, when anyone is hurt, the brain reacts to protect the body. It releases what we call endorphins, a natural opiate that acts as a painkiller. If you had ever taken morphine you would recognise it, a warm feeling that nothing could ever hurt you again.'