George chuckled. "Those priests. Nice work if you can get it, and apparently they've been at it ever since. Does history record how many children of supposedly sterile women were actually fathered by the lash-wielding Pansters?"
Joanne smiled and continued: "In Roman times brides to be, in order to ensure fertility, were placed across the knees of a 'sponsor' and strapped on their bare bottoms to the clashing of cymbals. And you're right about the predilection of priests. Until the sixteenth century, when supposedly the pope put an end to it, it was common for women after confession to retire to the priest's room to have their bare bottoms birched while resting on a specially-designed kneeler."
"And no doubt the aristocracy was into it too," George said.
"Absolutely. And not just their lordships. Catherine de Medici, in 16th century France, was notorious for her delight in seeing female bottoms being smacked. It is recorded that at a banquet in 1577, she made the most beautiful and noble ladies of the court parade naked and personally spanked them on the buttocks with the palm of her hand. Did you spank Pem for domestic transgressions? Never in anger, I hope."
George shook his head imagining her emerging wet from the shower about to be chastised for having an overdue library book, her lovely bottom glistening under the track lighting as she bent over the bathtub.
"Only as a prelude to making love," he said. "Only sometimes we pretended it was punishment."
"That's normal – and it depends on your definition of punishment. In America in 1936, Mrs. Dorothy Spencer published her famous Spencer Spanking Plan, said to be an aid to marital bliss. It clearly defined when a man could spank his wife and when a woman could whip her husband. Very detailed it was too, requiring that Mrs. Spencer's rules and regulations were observed to the letter. Women were spanked, but never whipped, whereas husbands were whipped by their wives. One leather goods store reportedly sold 297 whips the day after it was published and until the 1950s whips and paddles had their own section in the New York Yellow Pages. Imagine that. It must have done some good, during this period the divorce rate fell 37 percent."
George smiled.
"Perhaps that also accounted for the tight fitting skirts and women's dresses that were all the rage at that time."
"Indeed, bottoms were in," she replied. "Women's fashion, of course, was designed by men, fueled by male fantasies. The leading American romantic magazine, Your Romance, published a large number of spanking letters purporting to have come from women, although an internal audit subsequently revealed that most of them were written by men."
"Remember in this country the case of the spanking colonel?" George asked her.
"Before my time, probably, what was the story?"
George chuckled, pleased to be able to offer a case for her file.
"I forget the details, but back in the '70s, chap named John Brooks, the man Fleet Street called the spanking colonel, sued the Sunday People for libel after it reported he had spanked a 21-year-old woman. For six days the case knocked all other news off the headlines. In court the colonel stated, 'I think that spanking a girl's bottom - if she is willing and likes it and enjoys it - is simply part of fun. Provided it is with her consent, it is nothing more notorious than the Italian habit of bottom-pinching.'
"Apparently in his case, however, it wasn't entirely consensual. In her testimony what the young lady objected to was that he poured whisky over her bottom before he spanked it. Shocking waste of scotch, in my opinion. Hope it wasn't a single malt."
"Who won the case?"
"He did."
"And the judgment?"
"He was awarded one penny damages."
Joanne laughed.
"Lovely story," she said. "What about the cinema? Have you seen any spanking on the big screen, or the internet, for that matter?"
"No, I mean that's the problem isn't it? At least for me it is. Most internet sites are horrible, more about abuse than love and eroticism. I gave up on porn sites which as you can imagine makes my assignment more difficult."
Joanne reached over and patted the back of his hand.
George's heart skipped a beat.
"Arguably the best erotic spanking movie ever was made in France in 1976. La Fessee. I don't suppose you've seen it?"
George shook his head. "Never heard of it. Are you talking about a full-length film?"
"Absolutely, it's beautifully made and it caused a sensation when it went on general release in Paris. You can still see it on line. If you can't find it I'll send you the link. Its full title is La Fessee – Memoires of M. Leon – Maitre Fesseur."
"Monsieur Leon, I presume, was a master of the art. Go on."
"In the movie he is a bank teller. But when he spanks his girlfriend after he catches her having sex with another man, he sees how she became incredibly turned on. So he starts spanking other women as a kind of a night job – by appointment and for money. His first 'client' is his boss at the bank who invites him for dinner. During the meal and in the presence of his gorgeous wife he explains that they are having problems. They have tried sex toys, manuals, counseling, but nothing works. As a couple, they need something to put the spark back into their sex life. 'M. Leon, you are our last resort,' the boss tells him. So they retire to the salon where he spanks her while her husband watches. It's one of the most erotic movie scenes I have ever seen. And guess what? Introducing this element to their love life saves the guy's marriage."
"And the other women, they all pay for his services?"
"They do. And speaking of money, your time is almost up?"
"Almost?" Joanne got to her feet, went to his side and gave him a little peck on the cheek. "It's been a while for you, hasn't it? I'm sorry I can't offer you any whisky." So saying, she wriggled out of her jeans and pulled her panties down positioning herself over his lap.
And so in a little bedsit in Basildon, five years after the Bali bombing, the years of grieving fell away and it was George who thought he had died and gone to heaven. Joanne's bottom, now presented to him, was plump and round with a firmness and muscular tone that might have been carved from polished ebony. She arched her back and moved her buttocks deliciously making little appreciative noises to George's every administration.
"You're good," she told him afterwards as they sat chastely together on the sofa. "No wonder your wife was always wanting more."
"Joanne, thank you, I can't tell you how…." She interrupted him, "You don't have to." She slipped her arm in his and walked him to the door.
"Good luck with your book." She paused and pulled something from her pocket. I have never done this before with a client, but here's my card. You can come by the library and if I can help you with your research, I will. There are some books on the subject you might like to read. I'll dig some out." She gave him another little peck on the cheek. "So long."
George practically floated back to London. He jotted down as much as he could remember from what Joanne had told him and by the time the flat farmland of Essex had surrendered to brick row housing of East London, and the lines of washing flapping in tangled back gardens had given way to the huge phallic office towers of Docklands, he felt he was almost ready to start writing. The story of Catherine de Medici particularly interested him and the beginnings of a plot line were forming in his mind. His hero would be a Time Lord, Dr. Whom – unashamedly modeled, but George thought more grammatically correct, on his favo understand, and commuted to London, striding off to the station every weekday morning in a suit and tie like most of the other fathers and often not coming home until after I was in bed. His dad, Jefferson Mallory Jones, was a landscape artist and we had many of his paintings in our home. Grandfather Jones died when I was four and I don't remember much about him except the smell of his pipe when we went to visit and his whiskers that tickled myrite TV character Dr. Who – who would roam through time and space encountering some of the most famous people in history. Did the Queen of France spank her ladies in waiting as history alleges? Dr. Whom would find ou
t and report to the world.
The following month at Book Club he felt sufficiently emboldened to mention his literary ambitions to the chairperson, Dolly Bloom, proprietor of Blooms Galore, purveyor of fresh flowers and unique floral arrangements, on Buckingham Palace Road. Dolly was his best friend at Book Club, a straight talker, with a lively sense of humor and generous with it.
"How exciting," she said. "I'd love to hear more about it. Look, Wednesday is early closing. Why don't you pop round for tea? Four-ish, okay? You bring the jelly donuts." This was a joke they shared between them. Their eyes had met during the club tea break, both doing the same thing, teasing the jam from the hole in a doughnut with the tips of their tongues. It was their guilty pleasure. It became a private joke between them.
In the cold light of Tuesday George had some misgivings about show and tell with Dolly, but Wednesday followed on its weekly rotation and George felt he had nothing to lose. He knew Dolly Bloom to be a very proper person so he put on collar and tie and reminded himself of the social etiquette. He would have to remember to crook his little finger around the handle of his teacup at precisely the correct angle. As things turned out, Dolly's mind was on more than teatime.
"Alright George, spill it," she told him after he had hung up his hat and coat. "Let's hear the juicy details."
They were sitting on her antique Chippendale chairs across from each other at the dining room table of her cozy little flat near the Ebury Street Bridge. As he had expected it was heady with the fragrance of flowers. Dolly Bloom, looking her usual ample self in a floral frock trimmed with several yards of Belgian lace nudged a plate of chocolate digestives in his direction with a plump elbow and poured him a cup of her finest Sri Lankan tea.
"Out with it," she demanded. "What sort of a novel are you writing, romance, suspense, crime, comedy, a whodunit – I love whodunits – what's it all about, Georgie?"
George took a deep breath, making a quick check on the crook in his little finger.
"The genre is erotica," he said. "Erotic discipline, spanking really, there's quite a bit of that, but there's lots of other sex in it too." George thought it best if he came right out with it.
Dolly put down her chocolate biscuit and slowly raised an empty hand to her mouth. She was blushing like a prize-winning petunia.
"Oh, my, is it now? Spanking, you say." She said the word carefully as if she might break it. It was not something she herself was accustomed to saying. She shifted uneasily on her Chippendale chair.
"Yes, but it's more than that," George said. "It also has some of the other elements you mentioned, comedy, satire, history. My intent is not just to titillate, but to entertain."
"Go on, I must say it all sounds rather interesting."
So he explained to her about his hero Dr. Whom and his adventures in space and time with some of history's most famous characters.
Dolly poured him some more tea from her china teapot.
"These women that he meets on his travels, Cleopatra and the like, does he spank them?" She was now saying the word with resonance, giving it the full percussive treatment. If you did not know her to be a very proper lady you might surmise she was beginning to like the sound of it.
"Not all of them, most of them."
"So these….. spankings….. Dolly seems to be having trouble sitting still, are all in historical context, then?"
He told her about Catherine de Medici, his visits to the National Museum and all the research he had done. When he had finished and she refilled the teapot. George noticed she seemed flushed. But why? Flushed with excitement, perhaps?
"Is it possible?" he thought to himself.
He knew that Dolly Bloom was a stickler for protocol and rule No.1 of the Pimlico Literary Appreciation Society was No Sex, meaning no hanky panky between members. Experience had taught them that little affairs led to petty jealousies and then people invariably took sides and the whole thing got nasty and the next thing you knew the Book Club was in group therapy and the whole sorry mess was a distraction to their literary discussions.
But George was not visiting Dolly solely to enjoy her company over tea and biscuits. He needed to test the theory, as the American writer had suggested, that in the right time and place women like to be spanked, revelling in "the helpless display" of their bottoms.
"Well" George thought to himself. "Dolly has more than enough in the display department."
The little fella, who cannot always be relied upon for support, has indicated it will play no part in the proceedings. George, however, is no quitter.
It was time to assert his assertiveness.
"Ahem," he begins. "Dolly I have been meaning to speak to you about your behavior at Book Club. Do you really think it was fair to suggest to Mrs. Prenderghast that she was an illiterate dimwit simply because she seemed to be of the opinion that Michael Ondaatje's And No Birds Sang was an anthology of disappearing songbirds. And suggesting to Mr. Horowitz that he should stick to Readers Digest if the comparisons with Rousseau in William Boyd's True Confessions were beyond him, was, well, belittling. And, and," his voice rose in timbre just a little, "to propose to club members that our next book should be Feuchtgebiete, knowing full well that it's totally concerned with the vaginal and other bodily secretions of a German talk show hostess and that during public readings women have actually fainted, was beyond the pale. For these transgressions you deserve to be soundly…"
But Dolly was joyously and spontaneously ahead of him. Hoisting her considerable skirts she ran around to his side of the table and settled contentedly over his knee.
"Dum, de dum dum," she hummed.
"Dolly!"
"What?"
"I can do without Beethoven's Fifth."
"Sorry, that's more Music Club than Book Club. Never mind. Spank when ready!"
From his perspective at Ground Zero, Dolly's silk panties and the wobbling buttocks there assembled seemed to billow like the Teflon roof of a covered stadium, but George was not about to concede defeat.
However, just as he was wondering where to begin, or indeed how to begin, he heard the faintest of cracks and then another louder this time and suddenly the Chippendale collapsed beneath them depositing George, Dolly and the splintered remains of antiquity in a heap together on the floor. George would reflect later that he felt like Jacques Cousteau in a close encounter with a beluga.
Fortunately, nobody was hurt and they picked themselves up helpless with embarrassment and laughter. Whatever was about to happen would clearly not happen, at least on this occasion. The mood and the moment had passed.
"Don't feel badly," she told him as he put on his hat and coat and apologized once again for the destruction he was leaving in his wake. "Those old chairs need replacing anyway. I'll have something a little sturdier to sit on next time you come round for tea."
And she gave him a friendly pat on the bottom as he set off down the garden path.
Chapter Six
We are creatures of the forest
Spawned in the heat of primordial fires
Keepers of the flames of trust
In youth's sweet innocent desires From Riding in the New Forest by CM Jones I had a normal childhood, if being an only child is normal, growing up in a village in rural Sussex where there were still some thatched cottages among the modern brick houses and back garden swimming pools of the aspiring classes. Mum stayed home when I was little because she didn't approve of daycare, although she was always busy with her volunteer work fundraising for various charities. She was in charge of parenting and cultural upbringing, which meant pottery and piano lessons, which I hated because the teacher was a shrew, and riding lessons which I loved because I adore horses and even today just the smell of a stable evokes a rush of happy memories. Dad was a stockbroker, something to do with hedge funds that I really didn't understand, and commuted to London, striding off to the station every weekday morning in a suit and tie like most of the other fathers and often not coming home until after I was in
bed. His dad, Jefferson Mallory Jones, was a landscape artist and we had many of his paintings in our home. Grandfather Jones died when I was four and I don't remember much about him except the smell of his pipe when we went to visit and his whiskers that tickled my nose when he picked me up to kiss me. His wife, my Nan, was the singer and actress Norah Burton. Nan's stories of the West End theatre and the characters she worked with entranced me. She was, and still is, one of the great influences in my life. So when I was 12 and I was sent off to boarding school at the Chiltern Hills Academy I was happy because Nan lived not far away and I could visit her on Sundays for tea and scones and I would ask her stuff I could never ask my mum. I told her about my best friend at school Jennifer Emerson and how we had a crush on each other and sometimes she came to my bed after lights out and we cuddled under the sheets.
"Perfectly normal, darling," said Nan. "Although when I was a gal at public school we had to be very careful not to be caught canoodling. If we were caught we were sent to the headmistress's office. She made us pull our knickers down and bend over to be spanked with one of our own slippers. I think she rather enjoyed it."
One time, I think I was about 16, I asked Nan how old she was when she lost her virginity.
"I was 17, dear, a year older than you are now. I remember it well. I was just starting my stage career and I had a part in the chorus of a show at the London Palladium. The director took quite a shine to me and I must admit I was totally smitten. One day after rehearsals he asked me to stay behind to go over some dance moves and we ended up backstage making love on the set of South Pacific. Even today I sometimes find myself singing songs from the show." Nan cleared her throat theatrically and sang a few bars of Some Enchanted Evening, her once powerful contralto still strong enough to reach the cheap seats. She settled back in her chair and took a bite of a watercress sandwich.
"Yes, it was all quite wonderful, really. Years later and I married your grandfather and we bought our first house, I wanted to call it Bali Ha'i. Jefferson said, 'That's a funny name, 'Why Bali Ha'i?' I didn't tell him of course."
Spank: The Improbable Adventures of George Aloysius Brown Page 8
