She started to speak.
‘Now.’
Flustered at his curt interruption, she dashed off to do as instructed. Her skirt flew up as she ran, and he smiled a little at the flash of stockings and black silk knickers.
Marie returned with hairbrush and excuses in hand. ‘Ben, I spent ages getting ready. I tried really hard to do whatever I … oh.’
He sat just pointing at his lap. They watched each other for a moment and Marie lost. She folded herself over his thighs without a word, and lifted up her bum so he could pull her knickers down.
‘Jesus!’ she called out as he unleashed the hairbrush with force over her pale cheeks. ‘Ben!’ She tried desperately to get away but his arm clamped her tightly. ‘You haven’t warmed me up and it really hurts!’
He responded with a totally unfazed and unaltered assault on her bum. She tried to crawl away using the edge of the sofa for purchase but he held her still with his non-spanking arm and went to work with tenacity over all her bottom and thighs.
She heard it stop before she felt it. Her bottom burned and Marie groaned with relief, then realised Ben was speaking to her and resolved to listen to him dutifully.
‘Right, listen very carefully to this, Marie. You don’t know what you are doing, do you? I know you. You feel all of this, you don’t think it. You have taken this girl somewhere. Why? What did you want? What did you think about her and how she felt? And did you think about who is in charge of all this? Did you?’ He punctuated each syllable of the last two questions with a hard swat of the brush that made her cry out each time.
The doorbell rang. He paused, the brush in mid-air, and she waited, eyes squeezed tight shut for a number of reasons, none of them that she dared consider.
‘Get up.’
She scrambled to readjust her clothes, trying to look dignified and normal for their guest.
He looked at her with stern bemusement. ‘What are you doing?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘Get into the corner, knickers down, skirt up, and don’t even think about moving before I tell you to.’
The confidence the man had in his authority was such that he did not wait to see her carry out his orders, but went straight to the front door and then ushered Ali to the kitchen.
After only a few minutes, Marie started to feel a little less fear, and leaned backwards to try to hear what was being said. It was unkind and inconsiderate of him to put her into the corner when Ali arrived. He showed no respect at all for her position.
She could hear only muffled voices from the kitchen, and felt ignored and bypassed. Why couldn’t they discuss it with her? Why didn’t her feelings count? She was the one who had orchestrated this, after all.
It will be so confusing and bewildering for Ali, Marie thought, and it would be fairer for everyone if I put myself to rights and joined them, like a normal person.
Then she heard footsteps approaching and recognised Ben’s steady tread, and almost slammed her nose into the wall in her haste to get back into position.
Ben stood right behind her, his fingers carelessly stroking her exposed and still sore bum as he spoke. His voice sounded deep and certain in her ear, and in another situation it would have turned her on, listening to him speak so deeply and so close to her, but right then she was too frantic about Ali being there for that to happen.
‘I have had a conversation with Ali. She and I have spoken about how she feels and what she wants. I also know what I want. Pull your knickers up and come out of the corner. Sit on this.’ He plonked a chair in the middle of the floor. ‘Right. Spank her. Let’s see how you do.’
Marie had pulled her knickers up before he finished that fragment of his sentence but she stood still, looking from the chair to him and then to Ali. Her stomach fell and she did not know why. This is what she wanted all along, but in front of him it felt stupid all of a sudden, as if she were a child playing at a silly game.
‘If you need me to show you how it’s done, I can spank you before you spank her,’ he offered, noting the forlorn and hopeless look on her face.
Something in Marie snapped to attention and she turned to face a rather less compliant Ali than she had seen the other night. She searched for her work voice and hoped she had located it as she declared to Ali, ‘Right then, young lady, let’s finish what we started last week.’
Ali stood and stared, her chin jutted out in a way that Marie had not seen before, and her stance somewhat relaxed, but also somewhat ‘come and get me if you think you are hard enough’. Marie paused for just a second, ignoring Ben as best she could, then took Ali’s wrist and sat on the chair as she yanked the girl over her lap. It was an undignified landing and Ali grunted softly as her stomach hit Marie’s thighs, but in a moment they were sorted out, Ali’s skirt was up and her knickers at half-mast.
Marie felt more confidence then, which was impressive considering the pain in her bum and how having a woman, even a petite one, over her lap made that swollen bum feel even less comfortable. She tried to think of something Toppy to say, but Ben would know she was nicking all his lines so she resorted to action.
Slapping sounds soon filled the room, but that was all. Marie did her best to light a fire in Ali’s bottom, and she knew she was getting some good ones in but it simply was not having an impact. Ali glared at the floor and, although Marie could not see her eyes, she knew how little effect she was having. She redoubled her efforts and tried with all she was worth to draw even a small squeal from Ali, but there was nothing. A sinking feeling grew in her stomach until suddenly she was reminded why Ali had been in trouble at work in the first place.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ the girl declared, ‘my grandmother can spank harder than that and she’s been dead five years.’
Marie heard Ben’s snort, which was rich considering that, if she had said that over his lap, she would have to write a letter of condolence to her own bottom. She looked down at the light pink globes and realised she was sunk. She did not have anywhere to take it.
‘God,’ she moaned, ‘you can be such a little bitch at times.’
She spanked harder as she lost her temper. She had tried so hard, planned so well, and it had felt so good the other night, that it was beyond thoughtless of the other two not to help her. The frustration and confusion she felt poured out of her hands and on to Ali’s darkening bottom.
Ali felt the loss of control, felt the change of tempo and dynamic, and twisted herself off Marie’s lap, landing in a heap on the floor.
‘A bitch? Seriously? Me? Have you even considered what you’re like?’ She stood and glared, and Marie stood to meet her eye to eye.
Neither had seen the other like this. Marie’s poise and confidence from work had flown from her, and Ali’s compliance and eagerness to please had gone the same way. With their roles gone, it felt less like a journey into submission and more like a battle of wills.
Ben recognised the signs in Marie that he knew preceded a vitriolic blow-up, and decided enough was enough.
‘My turn, I think.’ His deep, calm voice made both women turn, and he took Ali’s hand and pulled her firmly down over his knee as he sat in the chair Marie had vacated. ‘You.’ He barely glanced at Marie. ‘Corner.’
Marie, so fired up she could barely speak, uttered an indiscriminate sound of anger and searched for words to refuse him, but then she saw for the first time how Ben looked when he spanked a girl. She watched his strong forearm pump up and down in a measured and methodical manner. She watched the way his head bent over his task, and how futile and tiny Ali’s protests sounded.
She stripped down her knickers and put her nose to the corner and wondered, ‘Why couldn’t I get her to make a noise like that?’