Blushing at Both Ends

by Philip Kemp

  She was very close now. There was a softness and submissiveness in her expression that he had never seen there before, and a hint of tremulousness about her lower lip. She had never seemed more adorable to him. He held her close and kissed her, and for some time there was silence in the room.

  Finally, Walter spoke. ‘Lilly – dear, sweet, infuriating Lilly – will you marry me?’

  ‘They will call you a fortune-hunter, Walter,’ she responded teasingly.

  ‘Let them call me what they will. I have known what it is to be poor, and have learnt the value of money. With me as your husband your fortune will be far safer than with any of those titled drones. Once more, will you marry me?’

  She shot him an enigmatic look. ‘Tell me, Walter, if I become your wife, will you still be so cruel as to spank me?’

  ‘Certainly, my darling, with the greatest of pleasure – very soundly, and whenever you deserve it. As a loving and conscientious husband with your best interests at heart, I could do no less. Now, for the third and last time: will you marry me?’

  ‘And what, pray, will you do if I refuse?’ she enquired, glancing up at him coquettishly from beneath her lashes.

  Walter smiled. ‘Then, my beloved, I shall once more put you across my knee, bare your impudent bottom and spank you smartly until you say yes.’

  ‘In that case,’ she murmured with a provocative pout, ‘I shall not say yes – for at least the next five minutes . . .’

  13

  ‘Spank Me Baby, Don’t Mean

  Maybe’: the Missing Chapter

  from Brave New World

  IN A RECENT article on ‘Spanking in Literature’, I noted that Aldous Huxley often betrayed an interest in the subject, and that ‘spanking references, if no actual spankings’ showed up in several of his novels. A few months later, I was intrigued to receive a packet from a post-graduate student working at a certain Southwestern US university that holds an extensive collection of Huxley’s papers.

  Both the post-grad and the college must remain anonymous, since she tells me she found these pages in a file marked EMBARGOED – NOT FOR PUBLICATION. But it’s clear that what we have here is a hitherto suppressed episode that Huxley originally intended for his best-known novel, the 1932 satirical futurist classic Brave New World.

  The novel’s set in a sterile technological 26th-century utopia whose deity is Henry Ford. Bernard Marx, a top-caste ‘Alpha’ tormented by a sense of dissatisfaction with the supposedly perfect society he lives in, is on vacation in New Mexico with the lovely and ‘wonderfully pneumatic’ young Lenina Crowne. Though Bernard finds Lenina highly desirable, he’s irritated by her mindless tendency to parrot the glib propaganda phrases of this ‘brave new world’, and to urge ‘a gramme of soma’ (a euphoric drug) on him every time he expresses unconventional opinions. Eventually his patience wears thin . . .

  From their hotel window, on the 65th floor, Bernard Marx gazed moodily out at the towers of Santa Fe. Except for the luminous blue sky overhead, there was little to distinguish them from the familiar multistorey towers of Charing T. He turned back to face the room. Impersonal in its luxury, it offered much the same comforts as his own apartment: liquid air, television, vibro-vacuum massage, boiling caffeine solution, soma dispenser, heated contraceptives, synthetic music vents, multiple-choice scent diffuser. Below him, on the lower floors, his fellow guests were no doubt happily engaged in erotic play, or in games of Escalator-Squash-Racquets or Electro-Magnetic Obstacle Golf, just as at home.

  Why bother, Bernard mused morosely to himself, when every place was like every other, all offering the same prospects, the same comforts, the same hazard-free, well-regulated diversions. Even, he reflected bitterly, as Lenina emerged from the bathroom wearing only her shell-pink zippicamiknicks and undulated seductively towards him across the deep-pile carpet, her arms raised to embrace him, even the same lush, flawless, infinitely desirable flesh. Lovely as Lenina undoubtedly was, he could no doubt have found other girls just as lovely, just as unhesitatingly compliant, here in Santa Fe. ‘Why bother?’ he repeated out loud.

  ‘Oh, Bernard!’ Lenina stopped in her tracks. Her arms dropped back to her sides and she gazed at him with a hurt expression in her eyes. ‘But I thought you liked me. Everyone says I’m awfully pneumatic.’ She regarded her curvaceous person worriedly. ‘Am I too plump for you? Is that what it is?’

  She turned, presenting her rearward charms for Bernard’s consideration. Even in his disillusioned mood, he had to admit that they were superb. Lenina’s full perky breasts, crowned with rosy nipples, her elegantly turned legs, her moist full-lipped smile, her wide blue eyes and lustrous blonde hair were all in their own way glorious; but her bottom was a triumph of the geneticist’s art, honed to perfection over six centuries. Generation after generation of spermatozoa and ova, lovingly selected for the dominant gene of callipygousness, of exceptional posterior beauty, had been painstakingly bred, matched and spliced, nourished and nurtured in optimum laboratory conditions of impeccable sterility; inspected, appraised and approved by team upon team of dedicated biologists; and these delectable twin globes, offered now to Bernard’s reluctantly admiring gaze, were the triumphant outcome. Rounded, soft and peachy, a delight to the eye and an irresistible temptation to the hand, Lenina Crowne’s hinder parts were the apotheosis of female bottomhood.

  Faced with irresistible temptation, who was Bernard to resist? Almost despite himself, his hand reached out to squeeze and fondle the shapely hemispheres, whose succulent flesh the satiny fabric of the zippicamiknicks hugged as intimately as a second skin. Coyly, the twin mounds yielded to his libidinous palping, their tender roundnesses rippling beneath his exploring fingers.

  ‘Thank Ford,’ Lenina breathed to herself as she felt Bernard’s tactile homage to her nether orbs, ‘he’s all right again.’ And, as she had told her friend Fanny, he did have awfully nice hands.

  She remained facing away from him until she judged the moment propitious, then turned and wound her arms about Bernard’s neck, completing the interrupted embrace. Feeling his body respond to hers, she purred happily, nibbled his earlobe and began to murmur her favourite erotic incantation:

  Hug me till you drug me, honey,

  Kiss me till I’m in a coma,

  Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny,

  Love’s as good as soma . . .

  Disgusted, Bernard pushed her brutally away. ‘Oh, for Ford’s sake,’ he snapped, ‘don’t you have a single original thought in your head?’

  Lenina gaped at him, confused by this unfamiliar concept. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she stammered, tears filling her blue eyes. ‘Oh, Bernard, I just wanted us to have fun.’

  ‘Fun? Oh, of course, by all means. Ford forbid that we should fail to have fun when the opportunity presents itself! And then, after we’ve had fun – what then? More fun, no doubt, and then more, and more. Fun unlimited, fun without end – fun to the furthest reaches of eternity!’

  ‘But what’s wrong with that?’ protested Lenina helplessly.

  ‘Oh, nothing – nothing whatsoever,’ Bernard retorted. ‘But if fun’s all we want, then we might as well be Gammas, mightn’t we? Or even Deltas or Epsilons. They have fun too, don’t they?’

  ‘Well, yes, but not as good. I mean – well, it’s wonderful to be an Alpha, isn’t it? Especially an Alpha-Plus like you, Bernard. You should be happy about it.’

  ‘Oh, I am. Deliriously, stupidly happy. How could I not be? A hundred and twenty repetitions three times a week for thirty months, right through my infant sleeping hours, telling me how happy I was. So, inevitably, I am. But, you see, so are the Betas. ‘‘I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta,’’ they’ll tell you brightly, for all the world as if they’d worked it out for their own stupid selves. And the Gammas are awfully glad too, and so are the Deltas and the Epsilons. All of them awfully, marvellously, damnably glad!’

  ‘A gramme is better than a damn,’ Lenina responded automatically.

  Be
rnard groaned. ‘Soma. That’s all you know, isn’t it? Every time I try to talk to you, to express ideas of my own, all you can suggest is soma. Or fun, of course.’

  ‘But your ideas are so dreadful, Bernard. They make me feel uncomfortable, and I’m sure they’re what’s making you so miserable. And if you’d just take soma you’d forget all about them. Remember,’ she added, reaching for another reassuring nugget of infant-learnt wisdom, ‘one cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments. Oh, do let me give you some!’

  Without waiting for Bernard’s response, Lenina turned and bent over the soma dispenser, once more presenting him with a fine prospect of her delectable rump; indeed, an even finer prospect than before, since her semi-inclined posture enhanced the lush curvature of her buttocks, jutting them invitingly towards him. As she operated the dispenser, her movements caused the soft mounds to tremble appealingly.

  The impulse seemed beyond Bernard’s control. All his irritation at Lenina, his disgust with himself, his frustration, anger and resentment collected together, coalesced and flowed down his right arm into his open hand. The hand rose of its own accord.

  The noise of that prodigious slap rang round the room like a pistol shot.

  ‘Ow!’ Lenina shot upright, gazing over her shoulder with huge horrified eyes. She clapped one hand to her injured bottom-cheek.

  Bernard gazed back, feeling the power and vibrant impact of the smack swell to possess his whole being. Suddenly he knew what, at that moment, he wanted to do more than anything else in the world.

  Reaching out, he grasped the astonished girl by the wrist. ‘Come here, Lenina,’ he said. ‘I’m going to spank you.’

  ‘But – what – why – oh, Bernard, please, no!’

  But her protests were in vain. Filled with determination and a fierce glee, Bernard drew her inexorably towards the bed, sat down on it and pulled her face-down over his lap, positioning her so that the voluptuous contours of her bottom curved uppermost. Encased in the skin-tight zippicamiknicks, whose sheer pink fabric moulded itself lovingly to the dimpled flesh, the beautifully rounded twin globes presented themselves alluringly ripe for smacking.

  Bernard paused for a moment, savouring the exquisite sense of anticipation, then brought his hand down in a resounding spank.

  Lenina wailed as it stung her sensitive flesh. ‘Oww! Oh no, don’t –’

  But again the hand descended, swiftly and implacably; again and again and again. Desperately Lenina squealed and writhed as the heat built up in her gyrating rear; pitifully she implored him to stop. To no avail. Not until several dozen vigorous smacks had made their impact smartingly felt did Bernard pause; and then, Lenina realised with dismay, it was only to remove the scant protection of her zippicamiknicks.

  Zip! The garment, helpfully designed for speedy and trouble-free access, fell obligingly apart and slid down the girl’s thighs to hang deflated at her knees. Its passing revealed a delectable sight. Roused by the reiterated assault of Bernard’s palm, Lenina’s blood had rushed defensively into the thousands of tiny capillary veins that wound their delicate tracery through the subcutaneous layer of the lovely buttocks, heating and engorging the tender flesh, suffusing the flawless epidermis. Like a bright flag of submission, a tribute to the effectiveness of his chastisement, a rich warm blush now mantled the whole glorious expanse of her behind, the roseate curves offering an exquisite contrast with the pearly whiteness of her back and thighs. To Bernard, this rosy hue only enhanced the natural beauty of Lenina’s bottom, making it seem even more enticingly spankable.

  Delighted, he resumed her chastisement with increased vigour, relishing the feel of her soft flesh bouncing and quivering beneath his smacks, the crisp clean sound of bare hand meeting bare bottom. With every spank the rubescent glow deepened on the defenceless globes, and Lenina’s tearful wails increased in urgency. Her bottom felt as though it were on fire, swollen to twice its normal size, and still the merciless punishment continued.

  If Bernard had been asked why he was spanking Lenina, he would have been hard put to frame a coherent reply. He felt no dislike for the girl; on the contrary, he felt fonder of her now than ever before. Nor did he believe that this chastisement would effect any significant change in her behaviour, or that she seriously deserved punishment for mouthing sentiments over which she had little control. His irritation towards her had vanished with the first few strokes, and ever since he had been spanking her for the sheer radiant joy of it.

  It felt right. It felt better than right; it felt fulfilling. To hold this lovely girl wriggling and squirming across his lap; to see her hair tossing and her long legs kicking; to spank her hard and steadily, covering every inch of her gratifyingly plump bottom (for she was indeed, as she’d said, awfully pneumatic) with stinging smacks, and hear her gasp and yelp at each stroke; all this felt not just arousing but infinitely satisfying, as satisfying as anything he had ever done.

  He could scarcely have guessed that Lenina too, for all her pleas and protests, would come to find it strangely satisfying; nor that, well before her punishment was over, she would start to feel the stirrings of erotic excitement.

  So when at last, reluctantly, he stopped spanking her and released her, expecting an outburst of grief or anger or both, he was surprised at her reaction. True, tears stood in her blue eyes and she rubbed ruefully at her richly encrimsoned bottom-cheeks. ‘Oh, Bernard, that was horrid of you! Horrid!’ she said, but her tone carried little reproach; and when she knelt unbidden to embrace him there was more passion in her kisses, more intimacy in her caresses, than she had ever shown before.

  Some hours later, Bernard once again stood at the hotel window and gazed out at the towers of Santa Fe, now glowing golden like bejewelled rods beneath a sky darkening to indigo. How beautiful they were, he thought. How beautiful everything was.

  He and Lenina had made love several times. Twice more, during the course of their play, he had turned her over his lap and spanked her again, reviving the glow that had scarcely faded from her luscious mounds. Each time her protests had seemed less indignant, her pleas for mercy less sincere. Her squeals seemed more an expression of excitement than of pain. On the last occasion, as the spanking mounted in intensity, she had unmistakably started to arch her bottom upwards to meet his hand, as if inciting him to administer further and more severe chastisement.

  Now, sated and content, he contemplated the evening sky and listened to Lenina singing in the shower. Bernard smiled as he recognised her favourite erotic ditty. But wasn’t there something unfamiliar about the words? He stole over to the bathroom door and listened more closely. A look of astonishment crossed his face.

  Something remarkable was occurring. For the first time in her snugly well-ordered life, Lenina Crowne found herself moved to independent thought – and independent creative thought, at that. Unprompted, uncoerced, quite unaided by sleep-teaching, she had composed a new verse for her favourite song, and was now happily singing it to herself as the hot water trickled amorously over the curves of her still-smarting rump.

  ‘Spank me, baby, don’t mean maybe,

  Spank me till my bottom’s glowing,

  Turn it red then let’s to bed,

  Spanking gets me going.’

  Smiling, Bernard moved away and lay down on the bed. Putting his hands behind his head, he stretched luxuriously, relishing a new sense of sheer animal well-being. ‘I’m so glad,’ he murmured to himself with an ironic grin, ‘I’m so glad I’m a beater.’

  14

  Heads and Tails

  ‘DENISE BLACK!’ HELEN Peters’s voice rang out across the classroom, shrill with exasperation. ‘Denise, I have had it with you! Go and report to the Principal’s study – now!’

  ‘Me, miss?’ Wide-eyed, Denise adopted her most insolent tone of phony innocence. ‘What did I do, miss?’

  ‘You know damn well what you did!’ To Denise’s delight, the young teacher’s voice was close to hysteria. Several of the class giggled audibly. ‘You’ve b
een disrupting this class all morning! Now go! Go! NOW!!’

  Sighing loudly and theatrically, the pretty blonde sixteen-year-old rose from her desk and slouched slowly towards the door.

  ‘Stand up straight, girl!’ snapped Helen Peters. ‘And get going, will you!’

  Denise swapped her slouch for an exaggeratedly sexy slink, wiggling her bottom outrageously. Her classmates responded with more giggles, and a few ironic wolf-whistles. Helen half-rose from her chair. Not for the first time, she regretted that corporal punishment had been banished from the British education system. She longed to land a stinging smack on that impudently gyrating young behind, but contented herself with glaring furiously as Denise left the classroom. The door closed; then the girl’s face reappeared in the glass door-panes, squinting and tongue stuck out. Squeals of laughter from the class. The teacher made an angry gesture, and the face vanished.

  Denise strolled casually along the corridor towards the Principal’s study. She was in no hurry. In fact, she was delighted to have been ejected from the class; history was an utter bore, and she’d been trying all morning to provoke Miss Peters into chucking her out.

  As for her forthcoming interview with the Head, she felt not the least apprehension. Here at Grove End Sixth Form College, discipline was even more lax than it had been at her secondary school. Dr McMullen was a well-meaning liberal type who believed ‘sympathetic understanding’ could work wonders. He’d tut sadly over Denise’s misdemeanours, enquire kindly how things were going at home and send her away with a minimal punishment and an exhortation to behave better in future.

  I can handle the old fart, no trouble, she thought to herself. He’s a pushover. Besides, on the rare occasions when even Dr McMullen’s patience had been tried too far, she’d always found that crossing her legs to give him a quick flash of her knickers worked wonders. Well aware of her own adolescent charms, Denise invariably opened an extra button or two on her blouse and wore her dark-blue pleated school skirts at least three inches shorter than the regulations allowed.