Portrait of a Disciplinarian (6 page)

‘Not if you sent it by freight,’ Hermione pointed out.

Stephanie began to answer, but stopped. She could think of a dozen objections to the scheme, but all seemed as nothing when set against the image of her entering the smoking room at Gaspers with a one-hundred-stone pig. Unless Myrtle had somehow managed to procure a hippopotamus, or perhaps the statue from the top of Nelson’s Column, both of which seemed unlikely, Stephanie’s election would be guaranteed. So, unfortunately, would the state of her bottom once her mother and probably the full complement of aunts had finished with her. Talking of acceptable risks was all very well, but she could already imagine herself holding tightly to her ankles with her dress flipped up and her union suit pinned open at the back as a queue of aunts flexed their muscles and discussed techniques for inflicting the most agonising welts on her unfortunate bottom.

‘And think how pleased Grandpapa would be if old Sir Murgatroyd’s pig went missing before the Okehampton show,’ Hermione pointed out. ‘You could probably touch him for fifty quid, maybe even more.’

‘That would mean stealing the pig well in advance,’ Stephanie said thoughtfully, ‘so we’d have to keep it somewhere, maybe for as much as a week, and the police would be spreading dragnets and all that sort of thing.’

‘We could keep it in the wood at Stukely Hall,’ Hermione suggested, using the first person plural in her rising enthusiasm. ‘Great-Grandmama scarcely goes out at all, and Grandmama and the housekeeper seldom go far, not down to the woods anyway.’

‘You’re going to help me, then?’ Stephanie demanded.

‘Um …’ Hermione answered, suddenly cautious. ‘I’ll help you plan.’

‘Come along, H.,’ Stephanie urged, ‘I need you to be my lieutenant. Please?’

Hermione made a face.

‘I’ll take you out in my two-seater,’ Stephanie promised, ‘anywhere you like, and I’ll stand you a slap-up lunch, as soon as I’ve got the money.’

‘Teach me to drive,’ Hermione asked.

Stephanie hesitated only a moment before extending a hand to grasp her sister’s. Bending together over the atlas, they began to plot, and continued to do so until the gong went for lunch.

Sir Richard Truscott had no sympathy whatsoever for his daughter Lettice’s vegetarianism, considering it a pointless fad which she would no doubt get over in time and with sufficient exposure to the sight and scent of delicacies. Lunch for the rest of the family therefore consisted of the last of the season’s pheasants, which had been hung until their tail feathers dropped out and then somewhat longer for good measure. The result was a meat so rich and tender that Stephanie found herself savouring every forkful, while even Great-aunt Victoria was rendered silent by her determination to do justice to the dish. For fully a quarter of an hour only Aunt Lettice spoke, remarking on the bad effects of meat on the large bowel while she picked at a green salad, having first investigated it with knife and fork to ensure that it contained no toads or other fauna.

The burgundy selected by Catchpole to accompany the pheasant was also above reproach, and Stephanie took full advantage of his generous hand, with her grandfather’s approval for her hearty appetite. The pheasant was followed by a steamed pudding so rich and so liberally smothered with clotted cream that, out of concern for her figure, Stephanie insisted on taking no more than a taste, although she allowed Catchpole to refill her glass with Sauternes no fewer than five times. When she left the table she was feeling pleasantly tipsy, so much so that when she and Hermione returned to the library to continue plotting she confessed what Freddie Drake had done, to her sister’s giggling horror.

The imparted secret served to seal their compact more firmly, and to reinforce what had always been a very close relationship. An hour later they had completed their discussion, creating a plan at once so mischievous and so satisfying that neither girl could look at the other without bursting into giggles. It was also extremely daring, but Stephanie was so full of burgundy and Sauternes that she felt equal to any number of irate landowners, giant pigs, rivals in love and even aunts.

‘Watch me, H.,’ she declared, pushing her chair back. ‘This is Aunt Lettice.’

Hermione laughed and Stephanie cleared her throat, then went on, making her cheeks hollow in mockery of her aunt’s lean face and speaking in a high, affected voice.

‘Medical specialists have shown that the consumption of meat causes congestion in the large bowel, leading to dyspepsia, flatulence and irritation of the mucous membranes. Furthermore …’

She began to pace up and down, taking exaggeratedly large steps and with one finger raised in the air as if to illustrate the points she was making, until Hermione was laughing so hard that she was having trouble staying on her chair. Encouraged, Stephanie allowed the tone of her voice to rise to something close to hysteria and began to stab the air with her forefinger.

‘… it has also been repeatedly proven that those of a carnivorous habit are prone to every form of vice known to mankind, including cannibalism, Catholicism, carpentry, being German, socialism, self-abuse and penis sucking …’

Her voice trailed off on the final word. Hermione had stopped laughing and was staring, past Stephanie in wide-eyed horror.

‘Oh no,’ Stephanie said weakly.

‘Oh yes,’ came Aunt Lettice’s voice from directly behind her.

A bony hand closed on Stephanie’s wrist even before she could turn around. One sharp jerk, and her arm was
twisted
into the small of her back; another, and she was pulled down across her aunt’s knee on the chair she had vacated before, bottom up, then bottom bare as the blue summer dress and the light, silk drawers she had changed into before lunch were flipped up and down respectively.

Stephanie was facing Hermione and caught her sister’s expression of shock and pity a moment before the spanking began, so hard and fast that she immediately lost control, thrashing in her aunt’s grip and kicking her legs wildly about in her half-dropped drawers as the slaps rained down on her defenceless cheeks. It never even occurred to her to protest or try and beg off the punishment, because she knew it was hopeless. At first Aunt Lettice seemed to be too angry even to speak, and she did not find her voice until Stephanie’s bottom was hot and pink all over.

‘Disgusting!’ she snapped. ‘To use gutter language, and in front of your little sister! Disgusting! Disgusting! Disgusting!’

With each word she planted a fresh smack on Stephanie’s glowing bottom, delivered full across both cheeks, a hard, methodical punishment that quickly turned to faster smacks as her temper overcame her once more. Stephanie burst into tears, blubbering uncontrollably across her aunt’s knee with her hair in wild disarray and snot running from her nose. The stinging pain in her bottom was so severe that she could not keep her thighs together and avoid showing off her quim from behind.

‘Disgusting little brat,’ Aunt Lettice raved, still belabouring Stephanie’s bottom with every ounce of her strength. ‘To think that you could say such words … that you could even know such words! And as for …’

Her words were lost in another barrage of furious smacks that sent Stephanie into a full-blown, helpless tantrum. Her thighs pumped furiously in her pain and her bottom bucked up and down, showing off not just
her
quim but her bottom hole too. The display only served to encourage her aunt, who began to smack the backs of Stephanie’s thighs, which hurt even more. Then she stopped, as suddenly as she had begun.

Stephanie collapsed across her aunt’s lap, panting, her head down, snot hanging from the tip of her nose, her legs spread as far as her drawers would permit, her exposed quim and bottom slit strangely cool between her blazing cheeks and heated thighs. Relief that it was over began to well up, until her aunt spoke.

‘I do beg your pardon, Gertrude, Mr Attwater, but I have had to spank Stephanie and she is being rather noisy about it.’

Twisting violently round, Stephanie gaped in horror. In the doorway was her Aunt Gertrude, and she was not alone. A man stood beside her, a tall, solidly built man, who managed to project an air of pompous superiority even as he stared in open astonishment at her exposed rear. Aunt Lettice released Stephanie’s wrist. Taken by surprise, she tumbled on to the floor, to lie for a moment with her legs splayed and any detail of her quim that the spectators might have missed while she was bottom up now available for inspection between her open thighs.

Immediately she jumped up, clutching her drawers, but tripped over them and sprawled forwards, straight into the arms of the man. He caught her, ducking down as he did so, and for an instant his hand cupped one hot bottom cheek before he hauled her up and set her on her feet.

‘Go straight to your bedroom, Stephanie,’ Aunt Lettice ordered.

Stephanie didn’t need to be told. She ran, clutching her hot bottom, tears streaming down her face, her drawers flapping around one ankle, only to come off completely halfway up the stairs. She didn’t bother to retrieve them, too full of embarrassment and self-pity to care. Once she was safely inside the Blue Room she
slammed
the door behind her and was about to throw herself on to the bed and cry out her feelings into the pillow, when she realised she was not alone.

Vera Clapshott was still unpacking. Stephanie’s travel trunk lay open on the floor by the bed, and the chest of drawers was arranged so that everything could be put away neatly and in its proper place. For a moment the two women stood looking at each other, Vera mildly surprised, Stephanie with her lower lip trembling violently as she struggled to blink the tears from her eyes.

‘I’ve just been spanked,’ Stephanie snivelled, desperate for sympathy, even though Vera seemed about the least likely person to provide any.

To her surprise the maid responded with a rueful smile, yet even in her distraught state Stephanie thought she noticed a cunning edge to the maid’s voice.

‘Well, I dare say it was needed,’ Vera said, but softly, her voice so kind and gentle that Stephanie felt new tears well up in her eyes. ‘Let me see.’

Too full of emotion to think of doing otherwise, Stephanie turned and lifted her dress, showing off her reddened cheeks and thighs.

‘It hurt dreadfully,’ she whined.

‘I’m sure it did,’ Vera agreed. ‘Perhaps I can make it better for you?’

Stephanie’s mouth worked in indecision. She wondered if her suspicions about the maid’s personal preferences were about to be confirmed. Meanwhile, in the back of her mind were nagging memories of Myrtle Finch-Farmiloe’s behaviour as a Protector. Yet the need to be held and comforted was too strong to resist, and her bottom had that hot glow which only ever came after a really hard spanking and always left her feeling pliable and sensitive. She nodded.

Vera put down the pile of carefully folded stockings she had been holding and stepped close, to place one cool hand on Stephanie’s burning cheeks. Stephanie shut her eyes as the maid began to rub gently, full of
shame
for the little shocks of pleasure provoked by Vera’s touch, but also feeling gratitude and a sense of absolute helplessness.

‘You’re ever so hot,’ the maid remarked, now with both hands cupped round Stephanie’s bottom cheeks. ‘I think I know just what you need.’

Stephanie nodded, unsure what Vera meant, but too far gone in surrender to complain. As long as the maid held her and comforted her she didn’t mind, even if Vera turned out to play the same rather beastly tricks as Myrtle. She let herself be taken by the hand and eased down on to the bed, side by side with Vera, who put an arm round her shoulder.

‘There, there,’ the maid said softly, and kissed Stephanie’s hair.

Her body limp, Stephanie allowed herself to be held. For a minute or more Vera stayed as she was, gently stroking Stephanie’s hair and whispering to her in a soothing tone, before tightening her grip. Stephanie squeaked as she was pulled down, but did not find her voice until she had been placed gently but firmly across Vera’s knees.

‘No, Vera, please,’ she snivelled. ‘That’s not fair! I’ve just had it once, and I didn’t mean to be bossy … don’t spank me … please, I beg you!’

‘Shh,’ Vera said gently. ‘Don’t be such a baby. I’m not going to spank you.’

‘No?’ Stephanie queried, highly surprised.

The maid had just lifted one knee, bringing Stephanie’s bottom into prime spanking position, raised and with the cheeks a little parted.

‘I may have to spank you sometimes,’ Vera said quietly, ‘but at the moment that’s not what you need.’

Stephanie swallowed, fairly sure that, considering the position she was in, there was only one thing Vera was likely to do with her, or rather a variety of things, all of them highly improper and extremely shameful. Not that she could stop it, too far gone to resist, and anyway the
maid
had a tight, no-nonsense grip round her waist. So she contented herself with trying to pretend she had no choice about what was happening as Vera leant back to rummage in the travelling trunk and extracted a large china pot labelled with the word Sootho.

‘It’s a patent preparation for the relief of nappy rash,’ she explained, ‘but there’s nothing better for a smacked bottom.’

Cold, slippery cream was applied to Stephanie’s cheeks, a large blob on top of each, which Vera then began to rub in. Stephanie closed her eyes, unable to resist the sensations of having her bottom gently caressed, although every excited contraction of her quim brought her new shame. Worse still, there was an awful and yet familiar intimacy about the maid’s touch, the gentle fingers not merely rubbing the nappy cream into Stephanie’s hurt skin but stroking and pausing occasionally to squeeze a handful of soft bottom flesh or simply cup a cheek. Only when Vera’s fingers burrowed between her cheeks to cream her bottom hole did she find the will to protest.

‘I wasn’t smacked there,’ she croaked.

Vera merely tightened her grip and began to tickle Stephanie’s anus, using one finger tip to tease the little bumps and creases around the hole. At first Stephanie tried to resist, squeezing her cheeks on Vera’s hand, but she got a little smack for her trouble and with that she gave in, pushing her bottom up for more. It felt too nice, too naughty, and she knew that her maid would stand no nonsense and would discipline her if she didn’t give in.