by Susan Thomas
I think it was his description of Steven, coupled with his 'please', that made me bend over again although really there was no alternative. How I held on while he thrashed me with that belt I have no idea. It simply hurt; each lash seemed to blaze with fire and carry on blazing until the next one landed when they simply blazed together. I know I made a fair bit of noise although I did contain it more than before. Finally, the last of twenty struck my bottom but I remained bent over because I had jumped up twice.
Bill was kind, saying, "You can stand up Sarah. Honestly that was well taken for a first thrashing like that."
"First! Are you planning more?"
"No, but with you who can tell."
Then he held me, and I sobbed with the soreness of my bottom, and sheer relief that it was over.
---oOo---
The Home Secretary sat at the head of the table. On his right hand side sat the Minister for Religious Affairs and next to him the Commissioner for Morality or, as he was more commonly known, the head of the religious police. On the left hand side of the Home Secretary sat the head of the Secret Intelligence Services and next to him the Commissioner of Police. The five men looked very grave and the meeting was extremely secret.
The Home Secretary sounded tetchy. "Well," he said, addressing the head of the SIS, "are we any nearer to knowing who Mr Brown is?"
"Yes and no sir."
"Oh, for pity's sake, which is it... yes or no?"
"Yes, we are nearer. No, we don't know who he is." The glare he received from the Home Secretary would have withered a lesser man. "We know a great deal. We know he is currently touring cells, raising morale and claiming they will soon overthrow the government. We know they call themselves The Yellow Sash and we know he's a first class liar. He claims that key members of the administration, who are not sympathetic to their cause, will be sedated. They won't. What he is giving out, is in fact poison, which will kill whoever gets it. We are in the process of secretly changing the poison to a mild sedative. He believes he has turned other members of the administration to his cause but he hasn't; many of them work for us. We have spies in the organisation but so far they are not trusted and not allowed to know much. We also know he is getting funding from somewhere and we suspect it is actually being stolen from the government. We propose putting a spy into the exchequer.
"What is feeding this is resentment at some of the religious rules. People don't like being picked up by the religious police for some trivial breach of the rules and getting flogged. They cannot see why they can't have shorter skirts or grow a beard. That resentment means that even if we catch Mr Brown there will be someone else doing the same thing."
The Home Secretary turned to the Minister for Religious Affairs. "Comment, Minister?"
"We know, and understand, the resentment. The rules were laid down to enable the populace to focus on outward and visible signs that they were part of a new and stabilised society. Their day is done." There were gasps from the secular members of the meeting. "We propose relaxing them: skirts may be up to three inches higher; the bodice line may be lower; make up permitted and more jewellery allowed; men will be permitted to grow hair long and have a beard or moustache if they wish. Those measures alone would remove most public punishments for women and the floggings for men. Church attendance will be changed to one compulsory attendance per month plus Christmas and Easter of course.
"We believe these will be welcomed by the people, but timing is everything. We need to announce these measures just before the planned uprising. We think it will take the wind out of their sails." The minister sat back with a complacent smile. He knew he had astonished his colleagues. Now he could criticise. "I am unconvinced by your plan to put a spy into the exchequer. Your man will stand out like a sore thumb, and never be trusted, if indeed, someone is embezzling for the cause."
The head of the SIS sneered. "We don't need to be told how to do our job. We have someone in mind who will never arouse suspicion at all and may well get inducted into The Yellow Sash. I am not saying any more right now. The matter is in hand."
---oOo---
Steven and Mary finally left but not before I had to listen to a patronising lecture from Steven about the proper submissive attitudes for a wife. I took it in the proper way. That was mainly because my bottom so still sore from my 'leathering' and I didn't want another. Once they'd gone we settled down to normal life again.
Bill was very happy with all I did for his office and the farm management. He was also delighted with my cooking, which improved rapidly. We enjoyed a wonderful sex life and I was so relaxed and happy. I noticed the complete absence of any artificial stress. Worries were all about real things: a sickly goat, a batch of yoghurt that had to be thrown away, yet another downfall of snow and still no sign of spring. I realised I was very happy. Even getting spanked didn't make me unhappy. It made me sore of course but afterwards Bill was always so loving and tender. Then one day two things happened which jolted me out of my happy state.
The first was I missed my period. I guessed I was pregnant and I got incredibly nervous. There was very little pain relief for a woman in labour. Most women giving birth simply had to get on with it. Then I knew nothing about babies at all; nothing about bringing up a child come to that. What did we do about nappies for example? It all seemed enormous. Then there was the fact that Bill's first wife had died in childbirth. Scary for me but more so for him. I didn't tell him, deciding instead to wait and see what happened. Maybe my period was simply late.
Then Bill's farming licence was not renewed. It may sound odd, but a farmer had to have a licence to run his farm, it was a sort of taxation thing. With no income tax, the annual farming licence cost a lot of money, depending on the size of the farm. Bill sat staring at the letter in shock. Licences were rarely withheld and then only for those deemed 'enemies of stability'. We would have to visit the local office to find out why.
Chapter 7
The licence office was only open once a week in our local town. The officials did a sort of circuit each month, but as the centre of a farming area, our local office was opened weekly. The official we met wasn't the usual one. I looked at him and sensed he was no farm licence official. He was better dressed and had a quiet sense of authority about him. Something else was going on here.
"I'm sorry Mr Cole but we cannot renew your licence until you make improvements to your farm."
Bill was outraged. His farm was the best run for miles around and he was, unusually for him, about to respond with anger, but I interrupted. A woman should wait to be invited to speak but I just opened my mouth and got on with it.
"OK, let's stop all this nonsense. What is it you really want?"
"Sarah!" Bill was shocked, "Go and wait outside. I'll deal with this later."
However, the unnamed official just chuckled. "Well done, Mrs Cole, straight to the heart of the matter. Let us put it this way, we need your help."
"We! Who, in heaven's name, is we?" Bill was now openly angry.
"Who we are doesn't matter, Mr Cole. We do have the power to withhold your licence or... grant it without any charge."
Bill went very quiet and I asked, "So what is it you want?"
"You, Mrs Cole. We want you to do a job for us. It would require you to come to Lancaster for a while. We need your expertise for a problem. Once solved, you'd be free to return."
Bill looked thoughtful and he said, slowly, "Does this relate to what my wife used to do in her former life?"
"It does."
"What exactly is it?"
"I'm afraid that is confidential, Mr Cole. However, Mrs Cole's expertise in financial matters, including controls, matches our need. If you would be so kind as to withdraw I will explain it to her."
Bill looked helplessly at me. For a man to withdraw, while his wife received confidential information, was way outside his experience but he agreed. "I'll wait in the street outside, but you harm one hair on her head..."
"No harm will come to her.
"
Bill left and I turned to this man whose name we didn't know. I shed my Earth Zero veneer and snapped, "OK, cut out all the bullshit. You don't stand a cat in hell's chance of keeping Bill's licence from him. By the time his solicitor and the farmers' co-operative get to work you'll be handing it over. Plus, you have experts in Lancaster who can handle anything, you don't need me for that. What is it you really want?"
He smiled broadly. "So refreshing dealing with you. Plain, straight and right to the point. I can tell you part, but until you agree to come, not all of it. We are sure that money is being syphoned off from government funds, but we aren't sure how, or who is doing it. We think we know which department...."
"Well do an audit."
He smiled again. "That's where part two comes in. For reasons I can't yet tell you we daren't do that. We need an undercover operative. You're ideal. For a start you're a transferee and, in a sense, not part of it all. Secondly you are used to dealing with the movement of large sums of money. We can easily pass you off as a disgruntled transferee whose skills are being put to good use."
"So? Why should I do it? You can't really withhold Bill's licence, or at least not for long. Relaxing one year's fee isn't really much of an incentive you know."
His broad smile each time I spoke was beginning to irritate me. "That's Mr Cole's incentive. You have something else. You've been told you are from Earth 9 and that Earth 8 is extremely close to it. The AWU has an employee on Earth 8 and has checked you out. You don't exist on Earth 8. Your parents married but had no children."
I had a sudden memory of my mother saying, "You were a huge surprise; a lovely surprise of course." It wasn't strange that they might have married but not had me.
"We can set you up on Earth 8 with all the right qualifications, a flat, a car and some starting out money. You do this job for us and that will be your reward."
I was hit with a huge wave of desire. I could get my career back again. Better, in fact, as I had no redundancy against my name. I knew what to avoid and, much better, how to get to the top. I could be rich and powerful. This was a real second chance. If I met Simon, I'd know to avoid the rat. If I was pregnant I could choose whether to have the child. I could employ a nanny if I did. A sudden thought struck me. "Are my parents still alive on Earth 8?"
"Yes they are, but they don't have a daughter of course, so it would be safe for you to be there."
It wasn't that. It was the thought they were still alive. I couldn't be a daughter but I could befriend them. Be like a daughter. I know pretty much everything about them and could easily get involved with them. I could have them back again.
"If I agree, Bill gets his licence and pays no fee for five years, plus you set me up on Earth 8."
He smiled, "My boss won't allow five years. That is a huge expense."
I stood and made as if to walk out. "Then it isn't that important to you. Bill will get his licence anyhow. I'll go and join him. I expect he'll want to spank me for speaking out of turn, but hopefully, he'll be so angry with you it will be a mild one."
He smiled again. That smile made me want to hit him. "Very well, my boss said you'd be tough. Five years it is. By the way we keep our word. You may find this an odd world by your standards, but we have a strict moral and ethical code, and abide by it."
I sat down again. "So, what's going on?"
"There is a revolutionary movement known as The Yellow Sash. Their leader is a shadowy, and very dangerous, character known as Mr Brown. He is ruthless and we are certain wants to set himself up as a sort of Oliver Cromwell type dictator. He'd avoid a Hitler type but he'd still be a dictator. He will relinquish a few rules such as those about skirts or make-up but that's really it. We know he deceives his followers because he has told them sedation will be used to neutralise key people in the administration. In fact, he is going to poison them.
"He seems to have ample funds and we are certain he is getting government money. Is it a sympathiser? If so who is it? Or, and this is my belief, Mr Brown himself. Yes, we can do an audit but not without alerting him to the fact we know money is going. It would give him time to cover his tracks. Your job would be to find out how money is being taken, who is doing it, and hopefully how it is getting to Mr Brown. If it is Mr Brown himself maybe you can get into The Yellow Sash."
We agreed a cover story to tell Bill; it involved problems with financing exports, and purchasing imports, as world trade was slowly developing. Because I was a woman, he couldn't tell anyone what I was really doing, but would have to say I was visiting his sister Mary, and her husband, to give more details about Earth Nine. When I told Bill about the five-year exemption from licence fees he was stunned.
"This must be very important work."
"It is Bill, but I'll be back before you know it."
I felt terrible telling him lies like that and I could tell he didn't altogether believe it. If I could tell him that after my meeting why couldn't he have stayed? However, he must have guessed that was a cover story and went with it. I also felt very bad about leaving him for Earth Eight but the thought of 'normal' life and a career, like the one I had, perhaps better, was a siren call for me which, coupled with seeing my parents again, I simply couldn't resist.
I packed a bag and the still unnamed man came to pick me up in a vehicle. That alone showed he must be of some importance. Private motorised vehicles other than tractors, and some vans and lorries, simply didn't exist. This had to be a government vehicle. To look at it was very like an old fashioned Land Rover but had the name Lancastrian on the front. It was in a nondescript brown colour and was very much utilitarian but it had a roof and inside, to my relief, a simple heating system.
"Well," I said chattily as we drove, "at least I'm in no danger of being spanked while I'm undercover."
"I regret that isn't the case."
"Yes, I know I can get a public punishment but I'll be very careful."
"Sadly, it is more than that. Single women not living under the authority of their parents must have a male guardian. That guardian has the same disciplinary authority as a father or a husband. About sixty percent of transferees are women and, of course, they arrive as single women even if married on their own world. They find that rule very hard. You will have a guardian I'm afraid. He and his wife do not know what you're really up to. They have an unmarried daughter of twenty-three living at home and two girls in their late teens. They have three sons; one in the religious police (not living at home) and two in the army."
The thought of that poor woman giving birth six times without pain relief made me shudder, but I suppose once upon a time that was quite normal on my Earth Nine. The thought of having a guardian was unpleasant but the hope of getting to life on Earth Eight buoyed me up. At that point I had no idea how strict my guardian would be or I might not have been so relaxed.
It took a while to drive as the roads weren't great but when we arrived I was stunned: most of the town seemed to have survived damage. The Castle was still standing and the whole university was still intact. In fact, it was the only surviving university in the country and admission to it was a huge privilege paid for entirely by the Theocracy.
We finally arrived at the home of my guardian. It was an extremely large house and looked, to my eyes, to have been built sometime just before World War One. It had a large, secluded garden, seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, a huge kitchen-diner, several reception rooms, formal dining room, library, study, utility rooms and a cellar. In the garden was a small garden house, stables, garage and a building containing a carriage. Many wealthy people used horses and a carriage. It was all beautifully decorated. Of course, I didn't discover what all the rooms were when I first arrived, but I saw enough to whisper to my (still unnamed) contact, "Who is this man? This place is lovely."
"He is head of the Lancastrian Motor Corporation. They make tractors, the vehicle you came in, vans and lorries. It is mainly owned by the Theocracy but has about ten percent private shareholders. I think he has
a bit of that ten percent. By our standards he is a wealthy man. Be careful of him; he is very strict with his family. You will know me and refer to me as Mr Jones."
There were three floors not counting the cellar: ground, first and second floors. My bedroom was on the second floor. Mr and Mrs Foster, their eldest daughter Rachel, and two younger daughters Ruth and Hannah had their bedrooms on the first floor. I was alone on the second. I guessed that the three bedrooms there had been for the boys (now men) although all redecorated. I was able to choose my own room and picked one with a lovely view over the rear garden. There was a luxurious bathroom which I had to myself and I was able to take a shower before dinner.
Dinner was a shock: it was a formal affair, preceded by prayers, with servants to bring in the food and wait on us. I guessed the servants didn't live in so must live nearby. The food was similar to that of a formal restaurant in my world. It was very good I have to say but I suddenly missed the more rural meals of Bill's farm. I was asked questions about my world, and I was very careful about what I said, making sure to criticise it and give some credit to Earth Zero.
The three daughters seemed very quiet to me and rarely spoke and then only by some sort of signal to their father. Mrs Foster was given greater freedom by her husband and occasionally asked a question on her own. Mr Foster (he didn't invite me to call him by any other name) clearly expected me to behave as his daughters did and I did my best. We all went into the lounge after dinner, while the servants cleared up, and coffee was served. Yes, coffee! My first cup since arriving on Earth Zero. Coffee was a very expensive luxury. We made polite conversation, with Ruth and Hannah telling us about their studies, while Rachel was made to tell me about her work with the poor and needy.
Then it was time for us younger ones (Rachel, Ruth, Hannah and me) to get ready for bed. I nearly exclaimed out loud but the god of common sense told me to keep quiet. Their three daughters left in docile obedience but Mrs Foster took me gently by the arm and came with me.
