by Sarah Veitch
'Show me your bottom,' her employer ordered from her stance behind Bertha's quivering rear.
Bertha reached for the slit in her drawers, then she hesitated, overcome with her usual shy modesty. 'I beg of you - beat me over my bloomers, Mistress,' she said. Then she writhed in an agony of anticipation as the older woman pushed her skirts even further up her camisole-clad back.
'No, I always birch my servants for the longest time with their little rumps quite naked,' the Victorian matriarch said.
'Yes, Ma'am. I'll bare my bottom for you now, Ma'am,' Bertha forced out. She swallowed hard then bade her nervous fingers to pull her bloomers slit apart to their fullest. The opening now showed off her plump but firm projections and deep dark crease.
'I'm afraid that won't do either. Please take your drawers down fully so that I can examine every inch of the parts to be attended to,' Mrs Randolph said.
Bertha breathed fast with humiliation as she unbuttoned her lavender-embroidered pantaloons. She let the loose material slip down to her knees and felt them caress her slender ankles. Now she was bare from her back downwards - and hugely aware of her exposed and vulnerable nether cheeks.
'In a moment I'm going to fetch the rod - and I certainly shan't spare you,' Mistress Randolph murmured. 'But first I'll just pin your petticoats back to keep them out of the way.' She moved closer, and Bertha felt her fumbling with the layered garments. Then she walked across to the other side of the room and selected an implement from a large pottery urn.
Bertha looked sideways at the pale yellow cane. It was long and thick, a wooden streak of cruelty. She wished that she'd been a more careful governess who hadn't left her juvenile charges alone.
'I apologise again for any water damage to your carpets and danger to your little ones, Ma'am,' she whispered humbly.
'I'll content myself with seeing your striped flesh look equally apologetic,' her employer said.
She raised the rod, and Bertha's fingers flew back to cover her silken bum in a frightened reflex gesture.
'Grip the edge of the desk, Miss Morton,' the forty year old woman ordered. 'If your hands come back again I'll cane them too.'
Bertha did as she was told, anxious to spare her palms if not her posterior. She'd seen the scullery maid flogged on her twin rotundities and then on her overly-protective fingers just the other day.
'I'm truly repentant, Mistress Randolph,' she whispered, knowing that she'd never forget this salient lesson. Then she took hold of the desk edge and tautened her soft cheeks in readiness for the first searing stroke.
Prepared as she thought she was, the sheer biting nature of the cane still caused her to howl like a she-wolf. Bertha jumped up, fingers clasping the burning brand.
'Bend over,' the woman said coldly, staring at her tear-filled eyes and trembling lower lip. 'Present your backside for the rod this instant or leave this house.'
Where would she go? What would she do? The streets were full of young women who were destitute. Bertha gave a last surreptitious rub of the sizzling tram-line then steeled herself to go over the desk again. She wriggled with further shame as her employer traced the scarlet stripe with her fingers then slightly parted Bertha's quivering upper legs.
'That stroke doesn't count because you disobeyed me,' the lady of the house said calmly. 'You'll have to endure it all over again.'
'Yes, Mistress. I understand, Mistress.' Bertha tried to sound resigned to the woman's merciless pronouncement but her voice quavered. She sensed that her employer had picked up the cane again so scrunched her buttocks into terrified fleshy knots. For long moments she squirmed against the desk on her naked tummy. Soon the lactose flooded her buttock muscles and she had to let her protective stance relax. Her Mistress had obviously been watching that selfsame bum carefully for she chose this crucial moment to lash it hard again.
'Oh please,' Bertha gasped out, half rearing up then obediently flattening her belly across the table, 'I don't think I can bear much more of the cane!'
'You should have thought of that before you almost drowned my children,' the older woman retorted.
Bertha quivered as she felt the rod's blunt tip being tapped against the central portion of her buttocks. She let out a nervous little groan.
'Raise that arse higher for me, if you please.'
With effort, Bertha flexed and straightened her calves and moved her back until her bare bottom stuck out further, then she strained to hold the pose.
Again the cane lashed down. Again she bucked and yelled, her lower legs bending up as if to cover her disarmed hindquarters. She felt so silly with the older woman staring at her exposed and heated squirming bum.
'Prithee Mistress, how many more?' she mumbled, keeping her hands to the front with almost uncontrollable effort.
'I've never gone in for numbers. I just thrash a girl until she's as subservient as a maiden ought to be,' the Lady of the House said matter of factly. 'I'll probably thrash you until your backside's the colour of ruby wine.'
She raised the rod and scourged the maiden's flesh again. Bertha began to cry openly.
'Oh it hurts,' she sobbed. 'It hurts so much.'
'This one will hurt a lot more because you're making such a fuss, girl,' the Victorian matriarch said coolly. She caned the lower portion of Bertha's globes and the eighteen year old could take no more.
With a loud wail she jumped up and raced for the door - only to find Cook standing behind it.
'Take your punishment, dear, then tomorrow all will be forgotten,' she counselled softly. 'Better that than join the hordes down at the Embankment every night.'
'But it pains and shames me so,' Bertha said in a little choked voice, tugging hopelessly at her pinned-up petticoats.
'Get back here this instant or I'll be searching for a new governess,' Mrs Randolph said.
'A sore bum or a starving belly,' the Cook continued cajolingly. 'Go back in, my dear - you can take it.'
With a last beseeching look at her kindly benefactor, Bertha obsequiously closed the door. 'Forgive me, Mistress,' she begged as she stumbled back towards the wooden table.
'You obviously can't keep your hands off your bare bottom when you're bent over my husband's desk,' said the forty year old. 'So let's try a much more demanding position instead.'
She pointed to a large brocade armchair in the corner of the room.
'Bring it into the centre of the study this instant.'
'Yes, Ma'am,' Bertha murmured, starting to curtsey then realising that her skirts were still pinned up above her bare backside. Dipping her head at the continued ignominy, she walked over to the plush black chair.
When she'd pulled it into the required place she looked fearfully at her cane-wielding Mistress.
'Bend over it sideways,' the woman ordered, 'so that your head is cradled in your hands on the chair's furthest arm.'
Slowly Bertha got into place. Once she was there she realised the innate vulnerability of her position. Now if she tried to reach her hands back her breasts and belly would curve down into the chair seat and the position would put a hellish strain on her back. All that she could do was lift her legs back, and she already knew that she couldn't lift them high enough to protect her nakedness.
'Perfect. Now take this cane back and get me another implement instead,' Mrs Randolph murmured. 'Something that'll bring the colour to those soft full globes you seem so hell-bent on protecting. I've no option but to punish you for starting to leave the room.'
'It stung so much, Mistress,' Bertha whispered standing up and taking the pitiless rod from her employer.
'It's going to sting a lot more now, I can assure you,' the Victorian matriarch said.
Snivelling, Bertha walked towards the urn. She slid the cane back into place amongst the other implements, glad to be free of its compassionless long-lasting bite.
'Now, what shall I torment that disobedient little arse with?' the older woman murmured. She smiled coolly at Bertha. 'Hold out the tawse. No, on second though
ts it'll go all over the place and may sting your upper thighs too much. And we want you to be able to walk without stiffness tomorrow when you're back at your governing tasks.' Bertha nodded then stared tremulously at the dressage whips and crops and studded tawses protruding from the hand-painted urn. 'Bring me the razor strop.'
'Which...?' Bertha stammered, fingers skimming over the handles as she wondered which implement would roast her defenceless hemispheres.
'The one with the wooden handle,' Mistress Randolph clarified.
Bertha picked up the punisher. The part designed to redden a naughty girl's bum was at least two feet long and made of heavy leather. It was approximately two inches across. The punitive strop was set in a short black wooden handle upon which the punisher could maintain a steady if merciless grip. Bertha fingered its stern contours and imagined what they'd feel like as they whipped into her upturned nether cheeks. 'The armchair awaits, Miss Morton,' Mrs Randolph said.
Bertha attempted another skirt-free curtsey then walked stiltedly towards the waiting furniture. With an enormous effort of will she forced herself to bend sideways over it, resting her head on her folded arms. Now her bottom was fully served up for the ensuing correction and she couldn't protect it with her pleading hands.
'There, that's better,' her employer said with obvious satisfaction. 'Much more accessible and nicely raised.'
Bertha whimpered. Then she cried out as the thick leather razor strop drove into her already-striped posterior. She threw her haunches from side to side as if attempting to shake off the fire lodged in her bare buttocks, but there was no escape.
'Calm,' her Mistress said. A cool but completely dispassionate hand fondled her sore extremities. Bertha groaned loudly but tried to slow her tormented writhing down.
'I'm so sorry that I failed you, Mistress,' she said with feeling.
'Save me the impassioned speeches,' the older woman muttered, again palpating the younger girl's exposed hot bottom. 'Tell me what a naughty girl you've been.'
Bertha groaned again. She so wanted to be treated as the older woman's intellectual equal. How could her employer treat her as if she were a little child?
'Oh dear, you've gone strangely silent. Perhaps this nice thick strop will elicit a response from you.' Bertha squirmed as she was subjected to another taste of the strop.
'I've been a naughty girl, Mistress,' she half sobbed, tensing and untensing her fevered hemispheres. 'I deserve a hot sore bum.'
'Very hot and sore and extremely tender,' her Mistress confirmed before toasting the girl's tenderised tissues. 'I'm waiting,' she said when Bertha's quivering bottom at last slowed down.
Bertha realised that she must debase herself still more.
'Please leather my arse cheeks further,' she said in a low shamed whisper.
'Speak up, girl,' Mistress Randolph said, 'or the razor strop will wring further pleas from you.' She thrashed three times at the underside of both soft cheeks.
Bertha moaned loudly then put one anguished hand to her mouth to stifle her cries. She hated giving the woman this satisfaction. Then the razor strop tanned her writhing haunches again and she knew that she had to speak.
'My... my backside wants to plead for mercy, Mistress,' she choked out, 'but it knows that it must writhe under your lash for as long as it's bidden.'
'At least it's learning,' her employer said, and laid on the strop more lightly across the centre of Bertha's crimson spheres.
'It wants to learn, wants to please its Mistress,' Bertha humbly gasped.
'Spread your legs a little further apart for me for the final two,' the older woman murmured, slapping lightly at the naked thighs before her. 'It'll help open up that furrow, your most secret place.'
Closing her eyes with renewed shame, Bertha obeyed her. She could feel the woman's eyes feasting on her most intimate female parts. 'Last but not least,' Mistress Randolph warned. Again she took her time, squeezing and stroking at the girl's naked cheeks as if to increase their shameful scorching. Bertha wriggled with humiliation as the woman fingered her bum crease and the virgin entrance to her sex. 'Part of me thinks you've had enough, but the other part of me enjoys watching your sore buttocks dance,' her tormentor said.
'They're very hot, Mistress,' Bertha confirmed in a shamed low whisper. 'They know that they've been bad but they beg very sweetly for clemency.'
'Do they indeed?' the older woman murmured, picking up the strop again. 'Well let's make this last but not least.' She drove the leather length smartly into the crease above the governess's thigh backs then told her to stay, wriggling and whimpering, over the side of the chair.
Twenty minutes later Bertha was allowed to put on her bloomers and unpin her petticoats from her waist. With glassy eyes she made her tremulous way to her tiny bedroom. There she sobbed for a while before coming up with a fetching plan. Yes, she'd looked and listened for the weeks that she'd been in this supposedly straight-laced household, had seen and heard all manner of unseemly things.
Late that afternoon when Mistress Randolph retired to the chaise longue for her usual nap. Bertha sneaked back into her employer's study. Then she slipped a love letter from Mistress Randolph to her secret lover into Mr Randolph's top desk. Bertha smiled to herself. She'd already heard how the man dealt with any dispute. After a second's contemplation she put a birch on the top of the desk. It was a long thick chastiser made of twelve thick rods of willow. She only hoped she'd be in earshot when it came down on Mistress Randolph's adulterous plump cheeks.
The Bottom Drawer
Ryka smiled as she selected the nightgown she would wear on her impending honeymoon. It was three long days till she married Thomas. Three days until her traditional English wedding took place! Again the Russian girl looked at the book on marriage customs which she'd bought, and read of lucky horseshoes and rice and confetti. It was all very different to the Russian village where she'd been raised.
'What are you thinking, dear?' Thomas asked her now. He was a mature intelligent man, who, at thirty-five was fifteen years her senior. He'd been her boss at the translations publisher where she'd worked since coming to Britain two years before. Now she hoped he'd also be her boss in the master bedroom, for that was what she suspected she would most enjoy. Her mother had told her little of such intimate matters. So far Thomas had kissed and caressed her but he hadn't presumed...
'I'm wondering which of your English customs you'll want to adopt on Saturday, and thinking of Russian wedding customs,' she said, loving the strict smart lines of his formal suit. She so wanted to please.
'I've heard of one old Russian custom,' Thomas said slowly. His gaze seemed to become more assessing. 'On her wedding night, the Russian bride would be told to choose from a pair of shoes which her bridegroom had left peeking out from under the marital bed. One of them was empty; the other contained a coiled whip.' He smiled then kissed the top of her head in an avuncular gesture. 'If she chose the shoe with the whip she got a taste of it right away.'
'And have you bought the shoes?' Ryka murmured, aware of a slight blush colouring her usually pale strong features.
'I have,' her fiance murmured, 'so now you must buy the whip.'
The next day Ryka shyly set off with a very special shopping list. Thomas had written down all the details. He walked determinedly by her side.
'I will blush all the time that I'm doing this,' she said.
'But it will also excite you,' Thomas answered. He took her hand and pressed it lightly. 'I'll consider it an act of pure love.'
The first two words on the list read Riding Shop. Thomas drove Ryka there and they entered the premises.
'My mare's being skittish. I need a whip to calm her down,' he said.
The man behind the counter raised an eye. 'Obviously we're not in favour of excessive punishment.'
'Nor am I, sir,' Thomas replied.
The man brought a selection of whips and placed them in turn in Thomas's hands. He flicked each through the air, then handed them to
Ryka. She fingered the knotted cords of nylon braid and new cut leather. Finally she chose a fibreglass dressage whip.
'Shall I wrap it?' the assistant asked softly.
Thomas ran the riding crop through his fingers. 'No, I'll be using it very soon,' he said with an anticipatory wink.
The next item on the list read Cook's Store.
'At least they'll just think I'm going to be baking!' Ryka murmured.
'Your bum will be baking if you're naughty,' Thomas replied.
Ryka blushed and dipped her head for a moment, then gave him a loving little kiss. She knew that men sometimes lovingly chastened their women as part of a consensual erotic arrangement. But hearing him talk like that - and imagining such discipline - still made her go red.
The Cook's Store held everything an amateur chef might need. It also contained the implements which Ryka had been ordered to buy for her own small bottom. Nervously she selected a long wooden spatula and a paddle-sized wooden spoon. Again, Thomas said that there was no need to wrap the thick smooth punishers. 'This gives a whole new meaning,' he said, 'to a girl setting up her bottom drawer!'
Thirdly Thomas took her to the maths department of a large scholastic store. There Ryka examined wooden and plastic rulers. When no one was watching, Thomas swished first the plastic and then the wooden one against her skirt clad cheeks.
'Which hurt the most, love?' he asked consideringly.
'The second one, I think!' Ryka stammered, thrown by the public nature of the lash. Her soft high bottom tingled and the curve between her legs gave an answering lurch. She put the plastic measurer back on the shelf then turned towards the counter.
'Remember,' he added, 'that when you next feel the ruler you won't be wearing a skirt or underslip or pants.'
Finally they made their way to a very adult shop. The two men serving there obviously recognised Thomas.
'Not got Liz with you?' one of them asked.
'We broke up last year,' Thomas said.
