by Susan Thomas
Well you can imagine the crash dive in morale I am sure, but I ended up with no points and the work of three to do - and he was still an idiot. I told him I was taking my long overdue leave and he tried to tell me he would sack me. Well, after five minutes with the rough edge of my tongue, he conceded defeat, and I headed off for a really quiet two weeks in France in what they called a gite, although I would call it a cottage. I planned to do some walking and hire a pedal bike to ride, eat out a lot, and read books stored on my kindle but never yet opened.
I hate ferry food but I needed a drink so I queued for a coffee. The girl who was serving seemed gormless to me and I was rude. There I have admitted it, I was rude, some would say extremely rude, and I won't deny it, but remember I was very tired and stressed. That was the start of it all.
As I walked away I could see a man approaching me. I thought it was going to be some sort of chat up and I felt like screaming that was the very last thing I wanted right then. However, what he said made me blush.
"You deserve a good hard spanking on your bottom for the way you spoke to that girl."
I stared at him. He was entirely calm and quiet, there was no anger, and he was perfectly serious as well. He was about six feet tall and athletically built, probably around forty I thought, so around ten years older than me. He had about him an air of authority such as you get with teachers, policemen and service personnel, but there was nothing of the officious bully about him at all. He was a man accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed.
I felt ashamed. I am not normally like that and I did what any sensible person would do in the circumstances: I agreed it was rude and said I would go and apologise. As I walked over he followed. I explained to the girl in French that the gentleman had pointed out how rude I had been, and I now apologised unreservedly and explained that in fact she had done nothing wrong. She was pleased and I walked away before turning to him.
"I hope you are satisfied now."
"The apology was good and well done, but that doesn't excuse the spanking. However, there is no opportunity of giving you one here so you are on probation until we meet again."
I should have been angry at that I suppose, but actually it was rather exciting as he was an attractive man but all I said was, "This coffee is foul, now what do I do with a nearly full beaker?"
He tasted his and smiled. "You're right. If you don't want it, give it here."
He walked to the side of the ferry, removed the lids, tipped the foul brew into the sea and threw the beakers in the bin.
Then he gave a smile and said, "Well your bottom is safe until the next time we meet," and walked away.
At the ferry terminal I found my small hired Citroen and drove to the gite which was lovely. There was a farm close by and about a kilometre up the road a small village with a restaurant/bar and a tiny shop that was open mornings only. It had all the modern appliances, but there was a very grand looking well in the garden, a relic from the past. The nearby forest had many recreational facilities including picnic areas and places to walk and ride. The only downfall was being woken incredibly early by what sounded like fifty cockerels in the nearby farm. I gave up and went to bed early and got up very early, riding through the forest in the chill of the barely warmed day before cycling back for breakfast.
This became my morning routine, and towards the end of my first week I was confidently riding as fast as I could possibly go, enjoying my speed over the flat forest path, the cool of the morning and the wonderfully rich sounds and smells of the forest. I shot round a bend and there, right in the middle of the path, was a man.
I reacted quickly but not quite quickly enough, for the swerve still managed to send him sprawling and send me off the path, where I managed to leap off the bike before it crashed into the bushes. I ended up sprawling beside the path.
We stood up, brushing the dirt and bits from our clothes, both unhurt but neither pleased. Then I realised who he was. He was the man from the ferry and he recognised me too.
"Ah Miss Very-Rude from the ferry strikes again as an inconsiderate cyclist on a forest path. Fate has clearly thrown us together for a purpose."
Before I could even move he seized me by the arm very firmly indeed, and marched me over to where a tree had been felled and left lying close by the path. I guessed what he was about and struggled, but he was far stronger than me and clearly experienced in restraining struggling people. Even as I began to panic, I wondered if he was a policeman or something like that. He sat down on the tree trunk and, in spite of my resistance, the next minute I was draped over his lap like a naughty small child about to be spanked.
I was wearing only lightweight shorts (with thin knickers underneath) and T-shirt, and suddenly felt extremely under-dressed and vulnerable. I protested, of course, but I didn't get far because I felt a most tremendous smack across my bottom which made me yelp. After that the smacks came thick and fast as he began what seemed to me like a very long spanking.
He was a strong man with a large hand, or so it seemed, and he spanked hard, very hard indeed, and I was lucky he had made no attempt to pull my shorts and knickers down. The smacks rained down everywhere, first here then there, on my right cheek then on my left. I never knew where the next smack would land and they all stung, the heat and sting mounting and growing with each smack.
I kicked, I struggled, I wriggled, I writhed, I shouted protests, I shouted insults, and finally I begged him to stop, apologising endlessly as if I really had something major to apologise for. When he finally dumped me unceremoniously off his lap and onto the forest floor I was crying and terribly ashamed of doing so. I felt this was a time for dignified anger and a few choice words.
"I'm calling the police, you have assaulted me."
He laughed, yes really he just laughed. "I know the local cops and believe me they won't care much about some uppity English girl getting her bottom spanked, but go right ahead if you want. Actually, you should think yourself lucky because you were due a spanking anyway and then you were tearing around with no thought for who might be on the path so you have two misdeeds dealt with by one spanking. That's a good deal in my book. Good day young lady."
My bottom was so hot and sore I just couldn't believe it. I was last spanked when I was ten years old in pretty much the same way, though not as long or as hard. It was really humiliating to experience it again. I pushed my bike back to the gite and, pulling my shorts and knickers down, examined my poor bottom in a mirror. It was really red all over with a deep even colour and that from a spanking just over my clothes as well! It looked hot which is exactly how it felt. My resentment at his lordly arrogance grew as I examined my bottom. Who did he think he was distributing spankings likes some sort of Zorro righting wrongs? How dare he spank me? I had apologised on the ferry and the girl had accepted it, and as for the path, it was six a.m. when I ran into him. How could I know there would be another early bird on the path?
I decided that he now owed me something, but who was he? I thought about it and it was far too early for him to have come very far so if I backtracked along the path I should find where he was staying. I decided to get up with the dawn the next day and ride back along the path until I saw some dwellings, and then watch carefully with my binoculars (a gift from my granddad who had hoped I'd be as enthusiastic about bird watching as he was) until I found his place.
The next morning it wasn't even fully light as I set off along the path with my binoculars slung around my neck. When I got to the place where we had collided I slowed down and proceeded very carefully. About a mile further on I came to a part of the forest where it opened up, and ahead was a very small hamlet of about five houses. I pushed my bike into the bushes and stood there watching the houses through the glasses. It didn't take long before I was rewarded. From the front door of the small cottage nearest me he emerged holding a bowl of café-au-lait and sniffing the morning air. Finishing his bowl he went back in, and I got my bicycle and moved closer, hiding the bike in some b
ushes behind his house and moving into a position where I could see both sides. I made sure the early sun couldn't reflect off the glasses and waited.
A short while later he came out of his house, striding away up the narrow road that ran through the hamlet. I crept up on the house, and found the back door open. I stood and listened for a moment, but all was still and quiet so I went in.
Everything was clean and tidy, even the coffee bowl had been washed up. I'd never before met a man that actually cleared up after himself, but I could find no evidence of who he was or where he came from so I went upstairs. In the drawer of a bedside unit I found his passport and his British driving licence. He was as I had thought, forty, and his name was David Berry, but it was his driving licence that scared me. He lived in the very next village to me, probably less than five miles away. I was standing looking at it in horror when I heard the front door open and someone came in. I shoved the documents back in the drawer and froze.
I tried not to move and hoped he wouldn't come upstairs, but then I heard the front door bang again and I breathed. He must have popped back for something. I waited a while but there was no sound so I quickly came downstairs and was just going to cross the kitchen to the back door when I was seized from behind in a very strong grip.
"Now what have I caught here? Well, well, well if it isn't Miss Very-Rude who is also a thief it seems."
"I'm not a thief, you brute. I wanted to know who you were since you assaulted me and now I know who to report to the authorities."
"Oh yes, well let's see what you were doing upstairs."
I tried to resist, but he marched me up the stairs in front of him and of course I had left the wretched drawer open. He hustled me over, reached from behind, and had a look in the drawer, seeing that everything was there but in disarray.
"So you are just a nosey parker. Well, I have just the cure for nosiness, young lady, and it is clear you need a very firm hand."
Still standing behind me and holding me firmly, he suddenly began undoing the fastening on my shorts. I tried very hard to resist, but he was too strong and too skilled for me, and I felt my shorts come down to just below my bottom. Next he began pulling my knickers down. I really struggled I promise you, but he was just too much for me, and suddenly I was bare.
I still can't work out in my mind quite how he did it, but in one movement he pulled me round, sat down on the bed and placed me face down over his lap. I knew exactly what he was going to do and protested and struggled, but for all my protests he might as well have been deaf, and as for struggles I just made myself tired. He placed one leg over both mine, had my arms pinned, and began spanking my bottom with his hand.
The very first smack of his hand on my bare bottom was so humiliating. How dare he do such a thing? It is so intimate a thing and he didn't know me. He had no right, and I told him so. He laughed and carried right on. His hand smacked down very fast and very hard, making a sort of machine gun sound on my poor bottom. First one cheek then the other, but so fast I couldn't keep track of it, and anyway didn't want to, it hurt.
I had no idea being spanked like that would hurt so much but it does. It starts with a sting and then sort of grows and I panicked. I shouted, cursed, and railed against him. I threatened and swore, and all he did was laugh and tell me I had it coming. In fact the spanking seemed to get harder and I couldn't bear it. My legs kicked, or as much as they could while trapped under his, like some stupid Hollywood heroine in an old movie, and to my horror I began to cry.
The fire in my bottom built up so much I became frightened rather than angry. How long was he going to do this?
"OK, I'm sorry, now stop. I'm sorry."
He stopped, leaving me across his lap in that most embarrassing position.
"I am not accepting apologies you don't mean. You are out of order and you know it so I am punishing you. Much better than me handing you over to the police as a passport thief, which is how they will view it."
He carried on spanking me. It was so humiliating and so painful. I cried and panicked about how long it would continue, and panicked and cried until I could barely see for tears, and my nose was running.
"I see you're looking nicely cooked now so time for a finale. How old are you?"
I refused to answer.
"I see, well I'd say forty-two."
"How dare you, I'm not middle-aged."
"Well, how old then?"
I suddenly saw where this was going and told him fifteen.
"No, I'll make it forty-two."
"OK, OK, I am thirty."
"Sounds truthful and is a nice round number, rather like your bottom, so I'll make it thirty. You may count if you wish."
SMACK and that was the first of the thirty; each one very hard and applied in a slow deliberate fashion. It was terrible on my already very sore bottom. I began by threatening, graduated to pleading, and descended into simply laying across his lap crying helplessly while the count rose: 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and finally thirty.
Somehow he lifted me off his lap, and laid me face down on the bed.
"I'll get you a wet towel," he said kindly.
The beautiful, blissful feeling of a cold wet towel was so welcome I began crying again with gratitude even though he had spanked me.
"I have warm rolls and croissants downstairs, and I'll make some coffee. There is also fruit. When you are feeling a bit better, come down and we'll have breakfast."
It took me a while, but when I smelt the rich aroma of coffee I discovered I was hungry because of course I'd come out before breakfast. So that was where he went! He'd gone to get rolls. I wondered if he had spotted me lurking as he seemed confident he had enough for two.
I looked a right state. My hair was dishevelled, my eyes red and my face blotchy and tear-stained, and as for my bottom! It was fire engine red all over, and needed the fire putting out. I sponged it one last time with the wet towel, redressed and went down with the towel which would need to go in the wash.
I had stopped feeling he had no right. I knew my stress had been making me really bad tempered and overwrought, and strangely I now felt calm and relaxed. What had I been thinking, going into his cottage and looking through his things? I apologised, and he smiled his acceptance while serving the breakfast. He'd even put a cushion on my chair!
"It's so not fair you know. I am fit and everything, but you were just too strong for me."
"It's because I am a man and you are a woman, and in general men are stronger than women. It's because our bodies are built for different purposes. You may just as well complain that a sports car can't tow a caravan. Half the problems in our society today are caused by trying to deny our genetic structures. Anyway, you know who I am, so what is your name?"
"Sally, Sally McNeill and although you didn't know it, I live in the village next to yours. I doubt we're five miles apart, which blows my mind given how far we are from home."
"Well, Sally McNeill, what say you we do one of the long walks together tomorrow, and end up at a nice restaurant for a long dinner. Then we can get to know one another properly, if you have forgiven me of course."
I suddenly felt all shy like a silly schoolgirl, but I agreed right enough, and as I cycled home (my bottom protesting about how hard the saddle was) I found I was very much looking forward to the morning.
Conversation
Jacob thought God was really blessing his arrangements. He had brought Sarah up to the top where the view over the moors was breath-taking. She loved it so much up here. Everything was perfect. The weather was mild for late October. The sun was getting low in the sky, painting wonderful colours of red and orange through the light scudding clouds. He had hidden flowers up here earlier before picking Sarah up, and now he produced them before going down on one knee in the true romantic fashion.
He had loved Sarah for eight years since he was thirteen. They went to the same church and had been to the same school, and he knew she loved him. He hadn't gone to university but instead
into his father's business and was now doing extremely well in his own right. He could afford to marry.
"Sarah, I love you with all my heart and have done for years. Will you please do me the honour of becoming my wife?"
Sarah looked surprised which pleased him; she was not one to take anything for granted. Her face softened even more, her eyes became moist and she reached out to take the flowers and hold his hands together. It was just as he'd imagined it. She would now accept and they would kiss, properly kiss, not the chaste kisses their families allowed. Arm in arm they would go home to announce their engagement. He should, of course, have asked her father first, but he didn't need to for Peter Arkwright had told him a year ago that Sarah was his if ever he wished to propose. It was at that point that his romantic dream was shattered.
"Oh, Jacob... oh dear. I wish you hadn't asked."
Jacob felt his whole world turn upside down and he felt sick. "Sarah! Don't you love me? I thought you did... you've said so several times and..."
She grasped his hands tighter. "I love you deeply. You don't know this, but I fell in love with you when I was seven years old and you were nine although you didn't even notice me then. You were too busy being a terrible mischief."
Jacob couldn't think, he just stammered out, "Well what is it?"
"Sit beside me." She made him stand up while she put the flowers to one side, and then when he had sat, she held his hands in hers. She looked at him. "Jacob, there is something that worries me and... it just frightens me and I don't think I can do it."
Jacob's mind leapt, as it often did, to sex. She was a virgin he knew, as his three sisters were. So was he come to that, but he had read much on the subject and knew in theory how to please a woman when making love.
"Is it the marriage bed?"
She turned very red and couldn't really look him in the face but said softly, so softly he could barely hear her, "No, not that, Jacob. I long for that."
Jacob wanted to cry, this was just not how he had seen things going. "I don't understand, Sarah. You love me. It's not the marriage bed. Please don't do this to me, I can't bear it."
