Damsels in Distress (17 page)

‘He’s going to do it! He says he’s going to do it!’ Sally rushed into Rose’s little room, face flushed with excitement.

‘Sally, slow down,’ Rose said, continuing to brush out her long brown hair. ‘Who is going to do it, and what is he going to do?’ She was used to Sally’s fits of excitement and waited patiently until the blonde girl had calmed down enough to explain what she was all agitated about.

‘Joe, of course, he caught me stealing pears from the tree by his cottage after church.’

‘I wondered where you disappeared to. But I thought you don’t like pears.’

‘I don’t, silly.’ Sally took the hairbrush from Rose and started brushing her hair for her. ‘He took ages to come home and catch me, too. I had to hide several lots in the hedge before I could get him to surprise me in the act.’

Rose opened her mouth in sheer astonishment at her friend’s effrontery, but Sally just carried on excitedly. ‘He said he’d report me but I begged him not to. I said if he liked he might punish me himself and looked all coy at him. He got all red when I said maybe I needed a good spanking.’

‘Sally!’

‘When he went all red I got a little bit worried. I thought he might be going to tell Mrs Bunyan on me.’ Sally’s voice was hoarse now with remembered anxiety. ‘But then he says he doesn’t think a spanking will do it for a wicked little chit like me, and that I’m going to have to have the belt instead.’ Sally giggled, but it was a very nervous laugh. Rose could hear the trepidation in her friend’s voice and realised that she was not the only one wondering if Sally had gone a bit too far.

‘Rose,’ the pretty blonde stopped brushing and blinked down at her, face full of anxiety as she chewed her finger pensively, ‘do you suppose a belting will hurt an awful lot?’

What on earth do you think you’re doing, Rosy?’ she asked herself as she scurried through the kitchen garden, furtive as a fox. You are as mad as that young Sally!

The gardeners had all gone home at five, but she was still afraid she might be spotted. Sally had disappeared after tea, her usual robust appetite seeming to have evaporated, the blonde picking listlessly at her food for once, before making her excuses. Rose had known where she was going, of course, for Sally was quite unable to talk about anything else all day.

So, instead of following her young friend, Rose waited a while before slipping out herself, and even then she took a different, more circuitous route, cutting behind the big yew hedge which screened her from the house, before entering the walled kitchen garden.

Why Joe had summoned Sally to the fruit store neither of the girls knew, but it struck Rose, as she scurried along the pathway, screened by the gooseberry cages, that it was a long way from the main house or other habitation. With a nervous thrill in her stomach she realised that Joe was no fool. No one would be around to hear the crack of leather on soft bottom flesh at this time of night. No one would hear a girl cry out for mercy or hear her squeals of pain.

No one but Rose, at least.

She told herself that she had to continue on her mission. She had to ensure that Sally was all right. Joe was such a hulking brute of a young man, who knew what he might be capable of? And Rose would not admit, even to herself, that the choking excitement that filled her chest might not be entirely due to concern for her friend’s welfare, or anxiety about being caught spying by the gamekeeper.

She hardly dared breathe as she edged open the door to the fruit store. Part of her was really scared of Joe and she had no intention of tasting the brute’s belt herself. Her mouth was very dry and she found it difficult to swallow as she stole through the first storeroom, with its rows of apples laid out on wooden trestle tables.

The storerooms were long and narrow and ran into one another. The first two were gloomy and had only fruit in them, but as Rose reached the door to the third room she could see that the gaslights had been lit and the sound of voices made her stop. The connecting door was partly open, but she hardly dared to peek through as the voices sounded very close. Then she noticed the window. It was small and contained nine little dusty panes, set to the side of the door behind the end of one of the long tables.

‘You’re late!’

‘I’m sorry, Joe. I couldn’t get away.’

‘It’s Mr Drake to you, you saucy little trollop.’

‘Sorry, um, Mr Drake.’

Heart hammering in her breast Rose carefully moved the cooking apples from the table directly in front of the little window. It took a while as she only dare move them a couple at a time, and it was with difficulty that she found spaces for them on the crowded bench. The sweet, sharp, apple smell mingled with the slightly dusty odour of the storeroom. The place was almost preternaturally still and she wished that Joe had chosen somewhere with a bit more background noise to mask the rustling of her dress, and the soft clunks of the big cookers as she placed them on the wooden surface.

‘You know what you’re here for, don’t you, my girl?’

At least the silence of the storerooms meant that Rose could hear everything from next-door. Joe’s voice sounded oddly hoarse. Was he nervous? It sounded like it, although Rose would not have liked to put it to the test.

‘Um, yes, Mr Drake, I do know what I’m here for.’

‘I’m going to give you a good old-fashioned leathering, girl. I’m going to send you to bed tonight with a well tanned behind. Understand me?’

‘Y- yes, Mr Drake.

There was a note of real fear in Sally’s responses, and Rose knew her friend was starting to regret her rashness. She clambered carefully onto the table, but there was too much dust smearing the panes to see anything but vague shapes, so she dug her handkerchief out from her sleeve and dabbed at one. That was a little better, but her view was still obscured, so she moistened a clean part of the cloth with spit and cleared a spot a little bigger than her eye. Then putting her face right up to the window, she was rewarded by an almost perfect view of the gas lit scene beyond.

The third storeroom was reserved for late harvested varieties, and so the long trestle tables were still devoid of fruit, and there was not a lot of space running between them.

In the narrow alley Sally shifted from foot to foot, hanging her head and kneading her fingers, looking quite unlike her usual chirpy self. Joe Drake, by contrast, looked relaxed, leaning back casually against one of the tables as he perused the girl. If there was tension in his voice it did not show in his posture. That rotten beast, thought Rose with a little surge of anger, really was enjoying himself!

‘Well, girlie,’ he grunted, ‘are you ready for a taste of this?’ He leered at the trembling girl, patting his broad brown leather belt. Rose almost willed her friend to refuse; it was not too late to turn and run, was it?

‘Yes, sir.’ Even in the sepulchral quiet of the storehouse Sally’s whispered reply was so soft that Rose could barely make it out.

‘Good.’ Joe sprang up and Rose felt a surge of panic as she saw Sally flinch away, but the gamekeeper did not touch her. Instead he spun and lifted the tabletop he’d been leaning against off its trestles. The thing was about ten feet long and made of three thick planks, each one a good foot wide, yet he lifted it as if it were nothing more than a kitchen tray.

Rose could not quite suppress a little gasp of astonishment, but fortunately the sound was covered by the noise made as he leant the tabletop against one wall. Then the young man took one of the solid wooden trestles, and pulled it nearer to the centre of the room. The tabletop on the other side quickly joined its fellow, and the trestle stood isolated in the golden gaslight, ominously awaiting its new role.

‘I like plenty of space to work in, don’t you?’ The man gave Sally a wicked grin as he unbuckled his broad belt, and Rose watched, horrified yet enthralled, as he drew the thing out of its belt loops, the dark, well oiled leather gleaming in the soft light. Joe Drake doubled the strap, a good two inches wide and looking like very heavy leather.

Crack
! Without warning he brought the belt down against the tabletop that leant against the wall. The retort sounded like a pistol going off in the silence of the storeroom, and Sally gave a startled squeal of terror. Rose failed to suppress a worried gasp herself, but neither of the pair looked her way.

‘Over here,’ he ordered, and with obvious reluctance Sally shuffled to the trestle. ‘Get your legs apart, you little tart.’

‘Please—’

‘Shut it!’ he snapped cruelly. ‘Wider than that. That’s better. All right, now bend over it.’

The young maid did as she was ordered, grasping the crossbar that braced the legs of the trestle. From her vantage point Rose was perfectly placed to view her friend’s plump bottom, well displayed now, as her position stretched the black cotton of her uniform skirt taut across her rump. Rose expected Joe to strike a blow, and she supposed that Sally was expecting one as well as the girl gave a little shriek of apprehension as the gamekeeper patted her bottom with his free hand. Clearly the man was not in any hurry.

‘Nice,’ he grunted. ‘I like a bit of meat to work on. You have a nice plump rump, you know that, girl?’

Sally gave a little squeak, partly dread, partly pain, as he gave her presented bottom a hearty, open-handed slap. Rose felt her own cheeks redden as she watched his rough hands pinch and stroke her friend’s behind. What he was doing was outrageous. How dare he take such liberties with Sally? She had half a mind to go and ask him what he meant by it. The only problem was that she did not dare move an inch.

And there was worse to come.

‘All right, time to let the dog see the rabbit.’ Joe gave a chuckle which nearly froze Rose’s blood, then pulled the bending girl’s skirts right up, exposing her bloomers and stockinged thighs.

Rose licked her lips, imagining what Sally must be feeling.

‘Surely he won’t dare pull up your skirt,’ she had protested when Sally was choosing her underthings that afternoon.

‘No, I don’t suppose he will,’ Sally agreed, her blue eyes wide with excitement and not a little unease. ‘But what if he does? I don’t dare risk these old split drawers. He would see all my everything.’ Both girls had blushed furiously at the idea, and in the end Sally put on her best new bloomers. They were pale pink and scandalously tight, of material so delicate they would provide minimal protection. The legs just reached her black stocking tops.

‘These are nice, girl,’ Joe drawled, mauling the lovely silk-encased bottom. ‘Latest fashion, eh? Put them on for me, did you, my pretty?’ Then without warning he grabbed the waistband of the flimsy bloomers and pulled them down to Sally’s knees.

‘Oh, what?’ the bending girl gasped. ‘No, please—’

‘’Cos you need not have bothered, darling, as I’m going to belt you on the bare!’

Firstly, however, he spanked her on the bare. Rose watched aghast as the big man’s hand came down with a pistol shot retort across her friend’s plump rear. Sally’s bottom was firm, for all its fullness, yet the force of that cruel hand set the cheeks bouncing merrily. The sounds of impact echoed around the storeroom, startlingly loud in the quiet of the chamber. Rose watched transfixed as the white bottom turned pink, and then the pink turned a delightful shade of blotchy red.

‘Ow, ouch, oh, please!’

‘Be silent, girl,’ Joe cursed. ‘I’ve hardly started. This is just a little warm up for you.’

Sally gasped and yelped as Joe’s hand came down and down again, until the whole of her plump behind, from the tops of her bottom cheeks to the backs of her pale thighs, blushed an angry scarlet.

At last he stopped, and standing back to admire his handiwork his bulk obscured Rose’s view of Sally’s ruddy bottom for a moment. ‘By, you have a lovely arse, my girl!’ he enthused.

‘C-can I get up now, s-sir, please?’ Sally whispered meekly, but Joe just put his head back and laughed.

‘Of course you can’t get up, you silly girl,’ he scoffed. ‘You’ve not been leathered yet. That was just a little spanking to get you in the mood!’

The next five minutes were the longest Rose had ever known. Joe produced a pipe, filled it and lit it, and proceeded to enjoy a leisurely smoke. He wandered back towards the door and, just for a moment, Rose’s heart nearly stopped beating for fear of discovery, but he only came as near as the nearest trestle table, which he sat upon, giving Rose a good view of his back, and just beyond, Sally’s trembling, well tanned rear.

Whatever Rose was going through, scarcely daring to breathe now it was so silent in the next room and Joe so near, she knew it must be far, far worse for Sally. Joe sat smoking silently, scrutinising the blonde girl’s naked bottom, watching with apparent satisfaction as the redness of her bottom cheeks and thighs slowly faded to a warm pink glow.

‘Open your legs wider, sweetheart,’ he ordered after a couple of minutes, and Sally tried, but the bloomers around her knees made it hard for her to obey. Even so, Rose could clearly see her companion’s quim, peeking pinkly out from between her thighs, and she knew that if she could see it then Joe must have an even better view. The gamekeeper shifted, and although she could only see his back, it almost looked as if the brute was fondling himself.

By the time Joe had smoked his pipe Rose was desperate to move. She had not dared shift her position for fear of making the slightest sound, and her legs and back were killing her. The clearly visible trembling of Sally’s bottom made it clear that she was also in distress, but Joe moved dreadfully deliberately. He knocked out his pipe in leisurely fashion, evidently in no hurry to get on with the job in hand.