Blushing at Both Ends

by Philip Kemp

  Meanwhile, the spanking continues, but SCARLETT’s indignant protests are giving way to more contrite tones.

  SCARLETT: Ow! Oh, Rhett, please, no more! Ow-ow! I’m sorry! I’ll be a good wife – oww! – I promise! I won’t see Ashley – OWWW! – again! Oh, darling Rhett, I’ll do anything – oww-ooh! – only please don’t – oww! – spank me any more!

  RHETT pauses, caressing SCARLETT’s bright-red bottom.

  RHETT: Well, Mrs Butler, that’s better. You know, I think you may have learnt your lesson. [He grins wickedly.] You’re certainly living up to your name, my dear. This is the most scarlet bottom I’ve ever seen!

  SCARLETT wriggles round on his lap. Her eyes are full of tears, and she pouts reproachfully at him.

  SCARLETT: Oh Rhett, that was cruel! How could you?

  RHETT: Oh, very easily, my darling. And, if necessary, I could just as easily do it again.

  SCARLETT [very softly]: Brute!

  Her arm goes around his neck. She pulls his face down to hers and their lips meet in a passionate kiss.

  SLOWLY FADE OUT

  FADE IN:

  INTERIOR – SCARLETT’S BEDROOM – NEXT MORNING

  SCARLETT in bed. She wakes, stretching luxuriantly, then grimaces and reaches round behind her to rub what is still evidently a slightly tender area. A secret, reminiscent smile of pleasure creeps over her face . . .

  7

  Academic Discipline

  IT WAS A perfect June afternoon in Oxford. The sun, for once, was shining. From the Chapel Quad came the austere click of croquet balls, interspersed with occasional muttered donnish imprecations. Among the college’s ancient stone turrets and spires, pigeons strutted self-importantly or pursued their absurd mating rituals; closer to ground level, undergraduates did likewise. A faint but unmistakable herbal aroma drifted down from the rooms of the Senior Reader in Theology. Altogether, an idyllic scene. Yet as he gazed out through the mullioned panes, Dr Abel Kendrick, Junior Lecturer in Medieval History at Gloucester College, was frowning. It was ten past three, and Louise Gray was late for her tutorial. Again.

  As he watched, Abel saw her come dashing wildly through the college gateway and across the quad towards his staircase, books crammed anyhow under her arm, her tousled chestnut hair flying. For all her haste she ran with a lithe unconscious grace, her breasts bouncing merrily beneath her Glastonbury ’04 T-shirt. Repressing an impulse to smile, Abel retreated to his leather armchair and composed his face into an expression of severe reproof as her hurried knock sounded on the stout oaken door.

  ‘In,’ he commanded sternly.

  Louise irrupted breathlessly into the room in a flurry of excuses and apologies. Abel hushed her with a gesture and pointed to an adjacent chair. She turned to deposit her untidy mass of books on the desk, offering him a fleeting view of tight-fitting and pleasingly upholstered faded-blue denim, then sank into the chair, sitting respectably upright with her knees together.

  ‘Dr Kendrick,’ she began, hesitantly.

  This was something serious – more serious than ten minutes’ lateness. Usually she called him ‘Abel’ and curled coquettishly up in her chair like a cat, her long legs coiled beneath her. Abel raised one eyebrow and waited.

  ‘I’m – I’m afraid I haven’t finished my essay. Not quite.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Abel. He let the ‘Ah’ hang in the air between them for a moment like a small thundercloud, then continued, ‘In that case, read me what you’ve written so far.’

  ‘Well, there’s – that is, it’s not really . . .’

  Abel smiled grimly. ‘You haven’t started it yet, have you?’

  Louise blushed, gazing at the carpet. ‘No,’ she said in a small voice. It was absurd, she told herself firmly, to blush like this. But somehow Abel Kendrick had that effect on her.

  Abel sighed, a little theatrically. (Academia, he liked to remind his students, was essentially a branch of showbiz.) ‘Louise, this isn’t good enough. You didn’t present an essay last week, either. In fact, this is the third you’ve missed this term. I used to think you were one of my best first-year students. Your essays were excellent and on time. They were well researched, and you have a quick original mind. You seemed to be in line for a brilliant First. But this term – well?’

  Louise looked wretched, shifting unhappily in her chair. ‘I don’t know, Abel. I am trying, honestly. I was working on this all yesterday, really hard.’

  ‘Were you now?’ A vivid image leapt into Abel’s mind – a memory barely 24 hours old.

  The previous day, after lunch in college, he had chosen to walk to his flat in Banbury Road the longer way round: through the flowery, long-grassed meadows beside the Cherwell, a small tributary of the Thames much favoured for punting in the summer months. It was a glorious afternoon, and the gentle Oxfordshire countryside was at its best. As he paused to drink in the scents and sounds of the riverbank he heard, not far away, a melodious and oddly familiar female laugh, warm and sensuous.

  Slightly ashamed at his own curiosity, Abel left the path and quietly parted the bushes that fringed the river. Moored immediately below him in a narrow secluded backwater was a punt with two people in it. The one lying on his back was male. Abel recognised him as Jake Manning, a second-year law student so low on intelligence that even the other law students noticed; though rumour had it he made up in other attributes for what he lacked in brains.

  Straddling Jake was a young woman, naked to the waist. She had her back to Abel, but the luxuriant chestnut hair and the sexy laugh were unmistakable. As he watched, Louise Gray lifted her hips to allow her companion to slide down her jeans, and her panties with them, revealing a delectably rounded bare bottom. At the sight of it, Abel felt himself gripped by a pang of mingled lust and jealousy.

  With a gasp of pleasure, Louise lowered herself on to Jake’s rampant penis and began to writhe her hips lasciviously. He grunted, eyes closed in ecstasy, while his broad hands reached round to knead and squeeze her superb rear end. Abel, furious at himself, slipped quietly away.

  Now, gazing at the lovely girl’s convincing display of penitence, he smiled wryly. ‘Were you, indeed?’ he repeated. ‘Well, of course it’s up to you how you do your research. But I wouldn’t have thought you’d learn much about – what was it? – ‘‘The Role of Abelard and the Scholastics in the French Medieval Church’’ in a punt on the Cherwell.’

  She gasped, gazing at him wide-eyed. ‘Nor,’ he pursued remorselessly, ‘does Jake Manning seem the most likely source of enlightenment. At least, not on your essay subject.’

  The slow hot blush suffused Louise’s face and neck. Oh, God, she thought, what a damn stupid thing that was to do. What was I thinking of? ‘You saw us when we . . .?’ Her voice tailed off.

  ‘You weren’t exactly being discreet about it. Don’t get me wrong: open-air sex, especially in punts, is a fine old Oxford tradition, and I’m in no position to be censorious even if I wanted to. But I can’t help wondering if what I saw yesterday has any connection with the decline in your work this term. Still, that’s beside the point. Whether because of Jake Manning or not, your work’s falling well below standard, and at this rate I’ll have to give you a very poor end-of-year report. You know that, don’t you?’

  His tone was severe, but more reproachful than angry. It caused Louise an unaccustomed fluttering in her stomach. Of all her tutors, Abel Kendrick was the one she most liked and respected – and, she had to admit, secretly fancied. And now she had let him down. She saw the disappointment in his eyes. He deserved better of her; and she was beginning to realise what she deserved of him. If, that is, she had the nerve to suggest it.

  His next remark gave her the opening she needed. ‘The term’s not over yet, Louise; you’ve still time to make good. And you know I’m ready to help you in any way I can. Extra tutorials or whatever. Any ideas as to what might work for you?’

  Did she dare? She shot him a sidelong look. ‘Well . . . you know what Peter Abelard would have d
one.’

  Abel Kendrick’s dark eyebrows arched up. ‘Just what are you suggesting, Louise?’

  She plunged on recklessly. ‘Well, Héloise was Abelard’s best pupil, wasn’t she? Brighter than all the rest. But, when she was lazy, he didn’t hesitate to – to chastise her.’

  Abel laughed. ‘True, so he did. But you’re overlooking a couple of things. First, what was quite OK in twelfth-century Paris would get me sacked, and probably jailed, these days. Then, as you’ve obviously read Abelard’s letters, you know those beatings were just a pretext. “Sometimes I went so far as to strike her,”’ he quoted, ‘“not in anger but in love, not from hate but from affection, and the blows were sweeter than any balm. Under pretext of discipline, we abandoned ourselves entirely to love.’’ Is that what you’re angling for, Louise – an erotic spanking? If so, I’m sure Jake would be happy to oblige.’

  He spoke flippantly, but he was covertly aware of a stirring in his loins. The idea of putting this lovely errant girl across his knee was irresistibly tempting. It was precisely what she deserved – for indolence, for lying to him and, above all, for letting herself down. And she certainly had the ideal physique for it: that bottom so enticingly bared in the punt yesterday had revealed itself as full, flawless and beautifully spankable. Oh, the motivation was there, all right – on both sides. But he would have to play this one very carefully.

  Louise grimaced. ‘Oh, I’m sure you’re right. I’d have no trouble getting Jake to spank me. But he won’t, because he’s got no right to – no authority over me. But you have, Abel. You’re my tutor, which means you’re in loco parentis. It says so in the college statutes. And I know damn well what my dad would do, if he knew I was fooling around in punts instead of getting on with my work.’

  ‘Namely?’

  ‘Namely – put me across his knee and tan the living daylights out of me.’ Inwardly, Louise gasped at her own audacity. The idea of Dr Richard Gray, that most mild and tolerant of men, whaling away at his eighteen-year-old daughter’s bottom like some irate Victorian paterfamilias was so outlandish as to be farcical. Luckily Abel was most unlikely to meet him, since he was away on a two-year sabbatical in Auckland.

  ‘Evidently a man of old-fashioned principles,’ Abel observed. ‘And I’m not saying you wouldn’t deserve it. But I think you’ll find, whatever the college founders may have intended, that these days the phrase in loco parentis scarcely covers physical chastisement. Especially not of a female undergraduate by a male tutor. Assault, gross indecency, sexual harassment and several other unpleasant terms are much more likely descriptions.’

  ‘Only if I complain to someone,’ Louise countered. ‘And I shan’t. You know I shan’t. I mean, why should I? It’s what I need to help me work, I’m sure of it. You did say you’d help me in any way you could. Well, this is the help I need. Please, Abel.’

  She gazed at him imploringly, her dark-brown eyes full of entreaty. As if uneasy under the intensity of her regard, Abel got up and stared thoughtfully out of the window. Finally, he turned and looked at her.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll do what you want, though I strongly suspect I’m being several kinds of fool. But you needn’t look so smug, young lady. There are conditions.

  ‘First, if I find you’ve told anybody – anybody at all – about this, I’ll immediately resign as your tutor on grounds of overload, and have you reassigned to Professor Mulvey.’

  He permitted himself a brief grin at her expression of dismay. Angus Mulvey was notorious for giving the most stultifyingly dull and intellectually vapid lectures in the entire History Faculty. According to scurrilous rumour, he only retained tenure through the personal intercession of the Vice-Chancellor, following a brief but ecstatic episode of reciprocal sodomy during the 1997 History Summer School in Izmir.

  ‘Then, whatever Héloise and Abelard may have got up to, all I’m going to do with you is spank you. Just that, and nothing else. Understood?’

  Louise nodded. ‘That’s OK. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Mary.’

  Abel raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh come on, Abel. Everyone knows you two are an item.’

  This was true. Indeed, there had been prurient whispers about Abel and Mary Linklater, the most brilliant of his students, even before she graduated two years earlier. She was now a probationary lecturer, having stayed on to complete her PhD, and as such the morality of her exact relationship with her former tutor was of less concern to the college authorities. Still, Abel was under the impression they’d been reasonably discreet. Evidently not, he acknowledged with a wry smile.

  ‘OK, but it’s not only that. You’re still an undergraduate – in statu pupillari, since you have a taste for clerical dog-latin. As such, I’m supposed to protect you from moral turpitude, not lead you into it. In two years’ time, when you’ve graduated – well, that’ll be another matter. But, for the time being, I’ll be sailing quite close enough to the wind by spanking you.’

  ‘One final thing,’ he added, fixing her with his gaze. ‘This is intended as discipline, remember, not fun. If all I do is give you the kind of playful spanking I suspect you enjoy, you’ll have no incentive to work harder. Rather the reverse, in fact. So I’m warning you now, Louise: what you’re asking for is a real discipline spanking – long and hard and painful. Are you sure you can take it? If not, now’s your chance to back out.’

  Under his dark-eyed stare, Louise felt a thrill of anticipation tingle her rear end. Just what had she let herself in for? Abel always meant what he said: if he told her this spanking was going to hurt, then hurt it would. The memory of watching him playing tennis flashed before her mind’s eye. He wasn’t the most skilled of players, but his forearm smash was ferocious. At the thought of those sinewy arms administering the same kind of punishment to her soft bottom that he’d been giving the tennis ball, she was seized with a shiver of mingled excitement and terror.

  He was right, though. If this treatment was going to be truly effective and give her the vital incentive to work at her best, a really severe spanking was what she badly needed. Besides, how could she back out now? She’d never be able to face him again.

  ‘All right,’ she said in a small voice, her gaze fixed on the carpet, ‘I agree.’ She felt her bottom flinch as she spoke.

  ‘So be it,’ Abel said, standing up. ‘Then to start with I’d better sport my oak.’ He went and closed the heavy oaken outer door to his rooms that signalled a desire for privacy and also provided excellent sound-proofing; then he shut and locked the inner door. ‘Oh, and close those windows, would you? We don’t want your squeals echoing around the quad.’

  ‘I shan’t squeal,’ Louise protested even as she obeyed.

  ‘Don’t be so sure, young lady,’ he retorted, opening a desk drawer and rummaging inside. ‘Wait until you feel this.’

  Louise couldn’t repress a gasp of dismay. Abel was holding by its handle an old-fashioned clothesbrush of glossy dark-brown wood, shaped in a long oval. He grinned wickedly at her expression of alarm. ‘Fine specimen, isn’t it? Edwardian, probably. The wood matches your hair rather nicely. But I think it’ll match your bottom even better.’

  ‘But – I thought you were going to use your hand!’

  ‘Oh, I am,’ Abel said mildly, ‘to begin with.’ Taking her by the wrist, he led her over to the upright chair she’d recently vacated and sat down on it. ‘This –’ he deposited the brush on the desk behind him ‘– is for Act Two.’

  As if in a dream, Louise felt him unbuckle her belt, unzip her jeans and slide them down to her knees. Then, gently but firmly, he drew her down over his lap. Her stomach fluttered as he settled her across his thighs, her head to the left with her hair brushing the carpet, her long legs stretched out straight and her bottom curved invitingly uppermost, ready to his hand.

  Abel gazed with delight at the sweet prospect before him. A triangle of pink nylon panties, discreetly fringed with lace, covered scarcely half the expanse of L
ouise’s shapely rump. Gently, he pushed her T-shirt up past her waist, whose slimness accentuated the swell of her hips, then stroked the luscious mounds. They felt cool, smooth and alluringly soft, trembling at his touch. He was conscious of his erection stiffening in appreciation. This girl would be sheer joy to spank. Was Héloise’s bottom anything like as lovely? he wondered. If so, no wonder Abelard was tempted.

  ‘Very pretty,’ he observed, ‘and your choice of underwear is charming. But I think we’ll have these clear of the target area, all the same.’ Hooking a finger in the waistband of the skimpy briefs, he drew them slowly down over her ripe rearward curves.

  Louise shuddered involuntarily as she felt herself denuded of her most intimate garment. The air was cool on her bare and vulnerable bottom, and Abel’s left arm held her firmly in position. She was wholly under his control; the thought was scary but strangely comforting, the realisation of her long-cherished fantasy of a punishment deserved and desired, but feared. Peering over her shoulder, she glimpsed his grin of determination and delight at the task in hand, and, despite herself, a low moan of apprehension escaped her lips.

  ‘Right, young lady,’ said Abel, raising his open hand, ‘this is what you asked for, so this is what you’re going to get. And don’t say I didn’t warn you if it hurts like hell.’

  Taking good aim, he brought his flattened palm down vigorously on the plumpest part of Louise’s left bottom-cheek. She gave a sharp intake of breath as its impact stung her tender flesh, and a matching spank, no less hard, connected with her right cheek. Abel paused and watched, enchanted, as twin hand-shapes, pink and distinct, sprang out on the cool white mounds.

  Having marked out his territory, he pulled back and for the next few minutes spanked her more lightly, just hard enough to sting, covering the whole adorable target area and relishing the way her soft young bottom-flesh jounced and wobbled beneath his punishing palm. After only a dozen or so smacks, a delicate pink blush mantled the lovely cheeks, gradually deepening to rose-red with each new spank. As the heat built up in her smacked rear end, Louise began to squirm slightly, emitting little mews and whimpers, more to encourage him than from any real discomfort. It was thrilling to lie across Abel’s lap, subjected to his will and feeling his hand swatting down on her bare bottom. But at the same time there was a sense of disappointment. This wasn’t hurting anything like as much as she’d hoped – and dreaded.