The Audition

While dusting the top shelf recently, I discovered a long-forgotten little paperback nestled between two larger volumes. Miss Rattan's Lesson, by Yolanda Celbridge, is a series of loosely-connected adventures of Thomas Peake. After receiving a sound caning from Miss Rattan at age 18, he develops a taste for disciplining naughty female bottoms, and does so repeatedly and thoroughly while attempting to study at University. The story is set in the Roaring Twenties.

In today's selection, Peake has been told by Edwina, one of his enthusiastic spanking partners, that he would be perfect playing one of the leading roles in a new play. He arrives at the theatre just as a rehearsal is ending. The director is annoyed by his unexpected presence.

"Now what can I do for you, sir?"


"You are Juliet Haize, the director?" He said. "Edwina Cheshunt bade me attend you."


He pronounced "director" with sufficient reverence to thaw her initial irritation. The woman nodded her assent. She was a handsome female, full-figured in a sombre grey shirt and grey woollen skirt which did not quite cover her knees; sensible shoes and dark blue stockings. Her hair was knotted in a white kerchief.


"Oh," she said, "you must be the young man Edwina spoke of -- I take it you have acted before?"


"Not exactly," said Peake.


"Meaning no," said Juliet Haze. "Why can men never speak directly? Well, Edwina is a flibbertigibbet, and not quite serious -- she knows nothing of the plays of Ibsen or Shaw -- but she is a good judge of character."


Peake said that Edwina had explained very little.


"I am directing the lost play of Aristophanes, The Drudges," she explained.


Peake said he was unfamiliar with the work.


"That is because it is lost", she said, clutching her brow. "I discovered it myself, in the Bodleian Library... The play concerns a slave uprising in Sparta. The men are away at war, leaving their womenfolk as mistresses of the city. The female slaves, tired of constant punishment for their misdemeanours, revolt, and subject their erstwhile mistresses to the same humiliations as they themselves endured. But the trick is, when the men come back and liberate the women, they find that they do not want to be liberated. They like being freed of responsibility having the noble toil of the drudge, and it must be said, frequent spankings and, sort of, whippings."


"You can't really have sort of whippings, Juliet," said Peake. "Either they are whippings or they are not."


"Well yes, whippings then. That is where you come in, as Phryne the slave mistress. You see, you don't have many lines, but in a way you are the lynchpin of the whole thing; you administer punishments impartially. Only mimed, of course, for the stage, but mimed realistically. The modern theatre must be realistic above all things."

They talk some more over lunch at a nearby restaurant. When they return to the theatre, everyone else has departed.

At the deserted hall, she carefully closed the door. Peake asked for a script, assuming he would have to read some lines.

"The script is not important at this stage. Your lines are mostly simple commands, to strip or bend over for punishment. I must audition you for what happens afterwards."

"You mean miming a spanking?"

"Not strictly mime. The spanking must be just hard enough to make a convincing and realistic noise. I am to play a token role, as a female slave, therefore you will attend to my bottom, please, Mr. Peake. Are you shocked?"

Peake gravely shook his head, and said that realism was essential to art.

"Perhaps you are not as bourgeois as I thought," said Juliet with approval. "You had better take me over your knee, I suppose. There are twenty-three females to be spanked in this play, Mr. Peake, and you shall have the lion's share of the spanking. I wish to be sure of your stamina."

The stage set represented Phryne's drawing room, where much of the action took place. There was a sofa and armchair, a table and various fans and tropical accoutrements. Juliet ordered Peake to sit on the sofa.

"Right!" said Juliet. "I shall bend over your knee -- you must hold me down, for I shall pretend to wriggle a lot -- and you must give me a spanking. Not hard enough to hurt, of course, but hard enough to make a good cracking noise. Lucinda should be here, to stand at the back and judge -- oh, where is she? Bother, we shall just start without her, to get me -- to get you accustomed to things."

She lay down rather gingerly across Peake's thigh, then allowed the weight of her body to press fully on him, totally relaxing her muscles in a position of complete helplessness. She lifted her skirts, revealing a pair of very high white panties and a garter belt of lace which was surprisingly frilly. Peake lifted his arm.

"Haven't you forgotten something?" she said. "Spankings are given on the bare, aren't they? I'm rather new to this."

Her voice dropped to a murmur as she said this, and had the resonance of untruth. Peake pulled her panties down in a swift motion, to reveal two full round fesses, taut and already clenched in expectation of his blows. The panties had become wedged at her stocking tops, and she said he should undo her straps and roll the panties down to her ankes, for realism. He did so, and she murmured that he should unroll her stockings too, as it would look more humiliating. He took his time at this task, rolling the sheer silk over long, smooth legs whose tender, pale skin was just as silky.

He began to spank her bare bottom, laying quite delicate strokes on the skin, and at each slap she trembled energetically. After a while, she said he was not doing it hard enough. For realism, he must hurt her a little bit, must feel angry at her, and then she would feel angry too, and her squirms and cries would be most realistic.

"Imagine that I've delivered some terrible insult," she said. "That I've said -- what is it you say to men? -- that you've got a tiny dangler. Yes! You've got a little tiny dangler, Mr. Peake."

Peake laughed and said this would scarcely be applicable to the character he was playing, the female Mistress Phryne.

"Oh, you confuse me. Well, your master has a tiny dangler! So there!"

Peake began to spank her bare fesses with force. Now her wriggles came in earnest, and a delicate pink suffused her bum-flesh, her cries of "Oh!" And "Ouch!" And "Steady on!" While not particularly theatrical, did not seem feigned either. Peake asked mildly if he was hurting her, but as he did so began to spank even harder.

"You know you are! I don't like it one bit! Edwina was right, you are a brute. But it is important to -- Oh! Oh! Oh! -- to have realism. God that smarts, sir. You are cruel, do you know? I bet you have spanked many girls before. Ouch! Oh! My bare bum! You horrid man!"

She was gasping for breath now, her bare bottom a squirming mass of mottled crimson, and Peake had to hold her firmly to keep her on his knee. His hand began to spank her below her buttocks, on the tender skin of her thighs, and her legs thrashed. Now she greeted each spank with a shrill yelp, interspersed with sobs, and her whole body was trembling as his blows rained on her buttocks.

"Don't stop," she panted. "Ah! Aaah! God, my bum is on fire! I've never had such pain. I feel this is my finest performance. There will be headlines in the Daily Herald. Such realism!"

"Yes, yes," she whispered through her tears. "You have got the part."