Seven Scarlet Tales (18 page)

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Emma’s cheeks were flaming hot. Allyson played her part so perfectly that she almost believed the accusations being made against her.

‘I’m not convinced. You’re here to have your ways changed, young lady. By the time you leave this place, you will be very sore and very sorry, but ready to embark on a new stage in your life. A stage you will never have to feel ashamed of.’

Emma nodded.

‘Is that all you have to say? A word of gratitude would be nice, or some acknowledgement of the hard work we’re going to do for your benefit.’

Emma nodded again. Her throat was dry, but she managed to force out the words, ‘Sorry, ma’am, thank you, ma’am.’

‘Well.’ Allyson rose to her feet. ‘Now the pep talk’s out of the way, I think we should move on with the orientation.’

Orientation? What was that supposed to mean?

She soon found out.

‘Blake, could you fetch the spanking bench from the outhouse, please? And Richard, we’ll need a strap, a paddle and a cane.’

Emma gasped, not that she was surprised. Allyson and Richard both knew she could take a tough thrashing. But could prisoner thirty nine? This was the question.

‘What’s the matter, thirty nine? Never been spanked before?’

‘N-no, ma’am.’

‘But you knew you had this coming?’

‘I wasn’t sure what the judge meant by corporal punishment.’

‘Ah.’ Allyson exchanged a significant look with Richard. ‘This is what comes of banning the cane in schools. None of them know the right terms any more.’

Richard shook his head, reaching inside a cupboard in the Welsh dresser to remove the implements Allyson had called for.

‘You will be answerable to all three of us, thirty nine, and so each of us is going to give you an introductory punishment, just to give you a taste of what you have to come. Unless, of course, you behave absolutely impeccably. But nobody ever does, alas.’

Allyson almost winked and Emma found herself slipping out of role, her lips twitching upwards. The sight of Richard with the strap, paddle and cane was mouthwatering. She thought of his strong, suited arm, reaching back, stopping for a quivering moment then speeding down with its special delivery.

Deliver me to evil.

She smiled in earnest at the stray thought, eliciting an immediate frown from Allyson.

‘Something amuses you? See if you find
this
funny.’ She took the wooden paddle from Richard and slammed it down on the desk so Emma jumped high in the air and clamped a hand to her mouth, suppressing a shriek.

Blake re-entered the room, carrying a kind of padded step-ladder affair with leather cuffs attached at strategic points.

All attention was turned to him as he set it down in the middle of the room and beckoned Emma towards him.

‘You’re really going to?’ said Emma haltingly.

Blake laughed. ‘Didn’t you know?’

‘Apparently she thought “corporal punishment” was something to do with the army,’ drawled Allyson. ‘But realisation is dawning, isn’t it, thirty nine?’

‘Yes, ma’am, but—’ She turned tragic eyes to her lover, but received only a pitiless stare in return.

‘If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime,’ said Allyson softly.

‘Maybe prison after all?’

‘Uh-uh. Too late for that. You’ve signed the consent form.’

‘But I didn’t know!’

‘Oh, come on,’ said Richard. ‘You would have had all of this explained by your lawyer. Trying to wriggle out of it now because you’ve changed your mind won’t wash. I know a spanking compared to a prison sentence seems like a good deal at the time, but when you’re faced with the reality of it, you lose your nerve. It happens to everyone, thirty nine. But they have to be dealt with. It’s summary justice. And it’s for your own good.’

He said the last sentence with a smile that chilled Emma’s heart.

She really ought to stop stalling. She could barely wait to feel his familiar strength and firmness as he laid the strokes on her.

They all liked to pretend otherwise, though, so she shot one last desperate glance at the door, as if expecting a dramatic, last-minute reprieve, then stepped forward with a heavy heave of her chest.

Blake ordered her to kneel on the lower step and bend with her stomach on the upper. The padded leather was at least comfortable, though the straps buckled around her knees weren’t so much.

‘By the time you leave, you might be able to take punishment without being strapped down,’ said Blake, pulling tight. ‘But we don’t take chances with the new girls.’ He looked over at Allyson. ‘Do you think she’s a screamer? Should I gag her?’

Allyson took Richard into a corner and conferred with him in a low voice.

Emma couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but she gathered they were discussing the safety or otherwise of a gag. Allyson thought that she knew Emma’s limits so well that she could stop before she got close to safewording. But Richard pointed out that the situation and role was unfamiliar and might affect her tolerances. Allyson conceded this.

‘No,’ she said to Blake. ‘Let’s sound her out first. If she’s a screamer, we can gag next time. Besides, I don’t mind a few howls of pain, do you?’

‘Not at all,’ said Blake.

‘And I love to hear all the desperate apologising, and begging, and promising to be good,’ added Richard. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Music to my ears,’ said Allyson. ‘OK, then, let’s start with Blake and the strap. Give her thirty, hard.’

Emma liked the strap, but she didn’t know Blake and was a little anxious that he might not be as expert as his co-conspirators.

The first stroke was a relief, falling in the right area, a good sizzling lick that set her up for more. She had had tops who hit too high, or let the belt curl around her hip, and that wasn’t fun.

Blake was able to handle his leather, and Emma relaxed into the strapping, enjoying the growing heat, identifying his
rhythm and adjusting her breathing accordingly. The leather had to be very thick to really hurt her, and this was a lovely supple length, stingy but not thuddy, almost a luxurious sensation.

But, of course, thirty nine wouldn’t see it that way.

Emma was ten strokes in before she remembered that thirty nine would be flapping and squealing. Unless she was the silent, defiant, stoic type. Yes, that’s what thirty nine would be. Full of stubbornness, determined not to show weakness.

If they wanted to break her, they’d have to work at it.

So she let out no more than angry panting, letting her fingers curl, white-knuckled, around the metal bar of the spanking bench.

‘You’ve got a fighter here,’ commented Allyson as the strap fell, over and over, getting hotter now, getting sore.

‘We’ve had plenty of fighters,’ said Richard. ‘None of them have beaten us. In the end, you’ll be just as sorry as the others.’

Emma gritted her teeth and shut her eyes through the last ten strokes. Blake could have been harder on her. He could have hit the same spot over and over. He could have concentrated on her tender thighs. He could have swung wider, put more force into it. But this was an introduction. Of course, there was plenty of time for that.

‘A good thirty,’ said Allyson. ‘Thanks, Blake. Now she knows what it’s like to have a bright red, spanked bottom. How does it feel, thirty nine?’

‘Fine, ma’am,’ said Emma through still-gritted teeth.

‘Fine, eh? Well, it looks lovely. Let’s just give you a minute or two to get used to it before I take my paddle to you. You won’t be feeling fine after that, I promise.’

The three of them sat around Allyson’s desk and chatted
about the journey and the weather for what seemed to Emma an intolerably long time. They knew she’d just want them to get it over with, but they weren’t going to give her anything she wanted.

Blake, she learned, was a paramedic and he had a long conversation with Richard about this. It seemed he and Richard were meeting for the first time this weekend, although both of them knew Allyson.

It was boring and annoying to be bent over a stepstool, bare, stinging bottom on display, while people behind you droned on about their work as if you didn’t exist. She kicked in her bonds, frustrated, and heard Allyson laugh.

‘Somebody wants more attention,’ said Blake. ‘She hasn’t had enough, has she?’

‘If attention’s what she wants, attention she shall have,’ vowed Allyson. ‘I’ve got a nice wooden paddle here, thirty nine. You’ll see that it feels nothing like the strap. I wonder if you’ll find it better or worse?’

‘A lot of our inmates hate the paddle most of all,’ said Richard. ‘Though the majority fear the cane more.’

‘You’ll be able to do a full comparative study very soon,’ promised Allyson. ‘Now. Stick that bottom out nice and high. You’re going to get twenty.’

The first stroke landed with indecent loudness, fat and full on the centre of her backside. Emma couldn’t help a whimper. She really wasn’t a fan of the paddle.

‘This’ll get the message across,’ said Allyson, in a low, fierce whisper. ‘You can’t ignore it. I’m going to have you begging for mercy.’

Emma had learned how to cope with the paddle, but it had been a long, hard road. Thirty nine was at the very beginning of that road and, for Emma, it was rather liberating to be able
to give voice to hearty yells of protest each time the wooden oval seared into her skin. Only a few strokes in, it really was like being paddled for the first time. The panic of feeling that she couldn’t take it flooded into Emma in a rush – a response she had thought to have overcome and controlled long ago.

‘Oh, no,’ she whimpered at about stroke six. ‘Please, no.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Allyson, dealing stroke seven with relish. ‘Not so easy to take, eh?’

‘Ow, no, I can’t!’ She tried to move her bottom away from the inevitable descent, but the knee straps held her in place.

‘We’ll remember this,’ said Allyson. ‘Any bratty behaviour from you, and the paddle comes straight out. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you’ll be touching your toes for twenty hard strokes. Better get used to it.’

Eight, nine, ten. Nothing of Emma existed except her bottom, a constant flare of pain consuming all her energies.

‘Ow, it’s horrible! I’m sorry! I’ll be good!’

Five more in such rapid succession that she howled.

‘That’s better,’ said Allyson. ‘You’ll certainly be getting more of this.’

‘Nooooo!’

Emma twisted her neck around. Allyson had stopped. Surely there were five more to go.

Allyson looked weird, almost worried.

‘Five more,’ prompted Richard.

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Allyson hurriedly. ‘Just … No, it doesn’t matter. Five more.’

The last five were the hardest yet and Emma knew that just one more would have broken her and brought the tears out. As it was, she lay there, grateful for avoiding that particular embarrassment, letting the alarming throb slowly recede, leaving tight skin and residual sting behind.

Allyson bent down to her ear.

‘You sure you’re all right with this?’

Emma nodded.

‘Any time you want to stop …’

‘I’m OK. Thank you. Love you.’

‘Love you, too.’

She straightened up and slapped the paddle into her palm.

‘Take note, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘This is what she needs.’

‘Better take another break before the cane,’ said Richard.

‘Good idea,’ said Blake. ‘No point caning a numb bum.’

They all agreed with that, laughing. Richard went to make them a cup of tea.

Allyson took a number of photographs of Emma’s bottom, promising to put them online on the government’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ gallery.

‘Won’t that be a service to the community,’ she gloated, holding Emma’s chin in her hand and forcing her to look up at her. ‘You’ll be a living deterrent. You never know, you might put someone off a life of crime. “Don’t want an arse like hers, ouch, no thanks,” they’ll say. We’ll have a little picture of your face next to it too, and your name and all the details of what you did. It’ll be out there for all to see, forever. I’ll get some snaps of you after you’ve been caned, too. I always love a caning photo.’

Emma saw Richard go into the kitchen and return with a bottle of sherry and some glasses.

‘I don’t believe in caning drunk,’ he said, ‘but just a quick snifter shouldn’t hurt.’

The cork popped, the liquid glugged, the glasses tinkled.

Emma’s mouth was dry. Nobody was offering her a drink.

‘When are the others getting here?’ Blake’s voice.

The others?

‘They shouldn’t be too long now,’ said Richard. ‘Unless Lucy’s managed to leave the motorway at the wrong exit. She does have a bit of form for that.’

Emma knew better than to speak, but she made a tiny strangulated noise in her throat. Wasn’t Lucy Richard’s new girlfriend? Surely she was too inexperienced for a scene like this. And besides, Emma didn’t want the group focus diverted to any other bottom but hers. Part of the attraction of this whole scene had been the undivided attention of three hardcore tops.

Allyson cleared her throat and spoke a bit louder, obviously picking up on Emma’s unease.

‘Young Lucy has been sent here as a warning, a kind of caution. She is to watch what happens to girls who don’t mend their ways before it’s too late. Her guardian and escort, Dr Sherburn, is accompanying her to pick up a few disciplinary tips of his own. I hope prisoner thirty nine’s fate will serve to convince her to improve her behaviour.’

Oh, OK. They aren’t joining in. Just watching.

‘How’s that whole three-way thing going?’ Allyson’s voice was lower now, the question directed at Richard.

‘What, with Lucy and Rob? Well. Very well. Much better than I expected, if I’m honest.’

‘No jealousy or competition?’

‘Nothing like that. Well, perhaps a little. Especially the competition. But it keeps me on my toes, which isn’t all bad.’

‘I couldn’t share a sub,’ said Blake.

‘Well, perhaps you’ll never have to,’ remarked Allyson. ‘But you haven’t found one yet, have you?’

‘Not permanently,’ said Blake, with a trace of a sigh. ‘I’m still looking.’