From the Top Shelf - The Second Half Dozen

 

From R.A. Bradbury's Obliged to Bend. Mrs. Hammond has received the first six of her promised three dozen strokes as recounted here. The caning continues:

Since I had made my point with all the subtlety of a stampeding carthorse, there was little chance she could fail to take my meaning. From the chastened guilty look on her face I knew that she did, indeed, understand. Now that things were back on track I could happily resume the session. I whipped the cane through the air two or three times, partly to loosen my arm, but mostly to unnerve her.

"Count the strokes out loud, if you please," I said. "Start at seven."

I uses this common spanker's device routinely. The slow disintegration of control as the punishment proceeds can be heard quite distinctly in the victim's voice, and as such is a most reliable indicator of her suffering. Anyone can exaggerate a flinch, and most can cry out reasonably convincingly, but few can fake the quaver in the voice that results from stress, or make it crack in a plausible manner.

I lifted the cane and whipped it across in a firm but controlled manner, somewhat harder than before. Mrs Hammond gasped, and flinched very prettily. I waited.

"Seven, sir."

Simple and to the point. I'm not one of the "seven thank you very much sir" brigade, which to me has a false ring to it. One particular acquaintance of mine goes even further, but "seven thank you sir and pardon me for being a bad girl" turns the whole affair, in my humble opinion, into a farce.  

I delivered another stroke of identical weight, but targeted at a slightly different point on her posterior.

"Eight, sir."

And so we continued, with the strokes perhaps fifteen seconds apart. By the tenth her voice was starting to falter. I made the twelfth the hardest of the lot so far. As the last stroke in this first set she would expect no less.

"Twelve, sir," she said, her voice quavering in a most enchanting fashion.

I waited; so did she, maintaining her position. Most satisfactory. The temptation here for penitents knowing a change of stance is due, is to rub to ease the sting or abandon the position or lift one leg, or do all three at the same time. Mrs Hammond did none of these things, I noted in quiet satisfaction.

I stepped up to examine her more closely, stroking my hand over her buttocks. The pink weals were nicely spaced, with little overlap, though naturally there was some slight difference in colour due to the varying stroke length.  A good start, I thought, and decided to share that happy thought with her.

"A good start, Mrs Hammond. Only two dozen more to go."

Was that a sigh from her lips? I couldn't be sure, though it seemed likely. Her bottom must be stinging considerably by now, and the thought of another two dozen to come would not be a welcome one.

"You may lower your skirts," I said. "Feel free to stretch, or rub, at your leisure. Should you wish to take a turn about the room, please do so; but pray don't forget your drawers are still around your ankles. I would hate to see you fall flat on your face."

She took me up on two of these options, rubbing her bottom and lowering her skirts in that order. In the meantime, I helped myself to another brandy.

To be continued...