‘Is something funny?’
‘No, just, this is weird. Surreal. I can’t believe I’m doing this.’
Rob had to concur, though he didn’t voice the thought.
He concentrated, instead, on what it was like to have a young woman put herself over his knee. She couldn’t quite anchor herself at first and her weight was all on one side until he put his hand on the small of her back and eased her gently into the right position. She knelt on the sofa with her bottom up high and her face against a cushion. Her stomach pressed into his thighs, and she would undoubtedly be aware of the hardening that was taking place inside his jeans. But that couldn’t be helped.
The loosely elasticated waist of her pyjamas slid to the very top of her bottom, just barely above the start of her cleft. The thin cotton left little to the imagination: the full curves with their central split were well exposed to his eye. The material was white with pale pink polka dots. He wondered if he would be able to see anything of the colour of her skin through it. He would certainly feel the heat.
He put one palm on the most rounded part of her cheeks and rubbed at them, holding her around her waist with his other arm. Would she kick? Would she struggle? Would she cry? What if she cried? What the hell would he do then?
‘Are you ready?’ he asked, patting her bottom.
‘No,’ she said rudely, and the pats turned into a resounding smack.
Oh, the sound of it, and the way she jolted forwards as if he’d shot her.
‘What was that?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, meekly. ‘Ready.’
‘Good. Now this is for lazing in your bed all morning. I hope it was worth it.’
He began to lay on the strokes, taking it easy at first, anxious about really hurting her. She barely moved and made no sound, letting the room fill with the crisp reports until a low sigh came out of her.
‘Does that hurt?’ asked Rob, genuinely unsure.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘But it feels lovely.’
That wasn’t the idea! He needed to make her feel this, make it count.
‘Thank you for your honesty,’ he said, and put a lot more into the next smack, which made her gasp and kick a little. This was more like it.
After a few more of these, exclamations of sincere discomfort began to pour from her and she squirmed mightily beneath his firm hold, never quite able to escape.
‘Oh, it hurts,’ she cried, perhaps twenty strokes in.
‘Good,’ he said, carrying on, moving his hand down her quivering arc, settling into a pattern that started at the high point of her bottom and ended at mid-thigh, then climbed back up again.
At fortyish, she tried to slip a hand of her own between his palm and the target, but he caught it and tucked it out of harm’s way, spanking on while she cursed and hissed and kicked a cushion on to the floor.
‘It’s meant to hurt, Ruth,’ he said. ‘That’s what makes it a deterrent.’
‘I didn’t know it would hurt this much,’ she wailed. ‘Please!’
He had spanked her about sixty times now. One minute. It didn’t seem very long. Was it enough?
He paused and placed his palm on her cheeks. Warmth radiated through the cotton, but he couldn’t be sure if it came from his own hand which, when he held it to his face again, was deep pink in colour and stinging mildly.
He let her huff and puff and settle herself while he considered his next move.
‘Are you learning your l
esson, Ruth?’
‘I’ve learned it, honestly, I won’t slack off again.’
‘I’m not sure.’