From the Top Shelf - Ellen's Startling Discovery

The last time we saw her, Ellen was smarting from the after-effects of a caning at school. As she examines her marks in the mirror, she becomes aroused. But does it lead to anything? Let's see.

God knows what transports of perverse ecstasy would have consumed me had I continued thus to wallow in my salacious fantasies, but muffled voices coming from my mother's room upstairs made me start guiltily, and, quick as a flash, I pulled up my drawers and adjusted my dress.

Who on earth could be up there? Burglars were unknown in our part of the country - and anyway, what was there in our sparsely decorated little cottage to burgle?

Then I heard the unmistakable slapping sound of a hand upon flesh - accompanied by my mother's voice giggling shrilly in half-hearted protest, like a young girl's.

With thumping heart I tiptoed up the stairs, carefully avoiding every creaky floorboard. On reaching the narrow landing I gazed furtively through the jamb of my mother's half open bedroom door then gasped at the sight which greeted me.

Mother stood with her back to me, naked save for her black stockings and camisole top. Her drawers lay crumpled around her ankles. By her side, completely naked, with his fully erect penis burgeoning out flagrantly like a tent pole, stood a tall, well-built, middle aged man engrossed in the act of undressing her, while every so often delivering well-aimed slaps to her bare buttocks so that they wobbled appealingly each time his hand struck them. He must have slapped them at least a dozen times already for they had acquired a distinctly blushing hue. I was deeply shocked to see that my mother showed no signs of objecting to the gross liberties he was taking with her person. Whenever he smacked her big, broad bottom she gasped, giggled, and made half-hearted attempts to escape - but he only held her loosely by the wrist. She could have freed herself at any time - had she wished to.

I had never seen my mother in a state of undress before. She was a magnificent figure of a woman, possessing a neat trim waist, broad - though by no means fat - womanly buttocks that plumped out sensually with the deep shadowy divide between them, and long elegant legs clad in black stockings gartered at mid thigh.

Slowly the man unhooked the shoulder straps of her camisole, and it slid down her naked body to the floor. He reached out and cupped one breast in his hand. My mother gave a low moan as he fondled her there, rubbing and squeezing the erect nipple between thumb and forefinger.

"Oh, Albert - please don't" she whispered guiltily, but made no effort to take his hand away.

Then, dealing a final full-blooded slap to her pink, quivering bottom - eliciting from her a helpless school-girl yelp - he propelled her, his hand still resting on her bottom, across the room to the bed; pushed her down on her back then sank down on her supine body like an eagle about to devour its prey. Spreading her legs wide apart, he drove his purple-veined distended member hard and deep within her.

She cried out shrilly at the moment of penetration and then, clutching at his broad back, incited him to push his way further and further inside her. I suddenly realised, with intense shock, that this was more than my respected mother who went out each day to earn our daily bread. She was also a woman - with all a woman's longings and needs. It had been twelve years since my father had died, and I instinctively knew that she had stayed faithful to his dear memory until now.

The old four-poster bed groaned and creaked as the couple, locked together in blind carnality, began to sway and jerk their loins up and down...even faster..and with ever increasing abandonment.

Shocked, confused, embarrassed and above all horribly ashamed of being a spectator to their riotous sport, I crept back down the steep stairs, across the silent parlour with its battered old clock on the mantel-piece that never told the right time, and out of the front door - closing it ever so gently so as not to betray my presence to the lovers in the room above my head.

I slunk down our lane, my brow furrowed,a prey to all kinds of warring emotions. I felt bitter anger against my mother. She'd betrayed me - so Prissy had been right all along! In trying to defend my mother's maligned honour I had earned myself a painful caning - and for what?

Yet the disturbing scene I had accidentally stumbled upon produced another much more subtle and insidious effect upon me...I simply could not erase from my mind the powerful image of that man, aggressively potent with his monstrous, stuck-out penis, and the resounding slaps he had delivered to my mother's submissively receptive rear. Somehow I combined this haunting picture with that of myself a mere hour or two before...my own bottom penitentially out-thrust, being soundly whipped by Dr. Smallwood's long swishy cane.

Looking back upon my life, I am sure that this was the moment when, for me, physical love and corporal chastisement became indissolubly wedded. Henceforth I was quite unable to conceive of one without the other. The die was cast.

Ellen flees from the house before she is detected and spends the afternoon on the hillside, contemplating nature.

Hours later, when I returned home from my wanderings, I discovered my mother's 'guest' had still not departed. He was now ensconced in state at the parlour table, busily consuming a tea of bread and butter, cucumber sandwiches,and cakes - waited on hand and foot by my mother, who looked both flustered and proud.

"Ellen, this is Mr. Filbertson," she said as the visitor stood up and solemnly shook hands with me. I confess I was sorely tempted to giggle hysterically at the memory of seeing that great huge purple-veined thing of his protruding from between his massive hairy legs - but I somehow managed to control myself.

"Mr. Filbertson," she went on, " has been recuperating in our hospital from a chest complaint, and is now happily fully recovered. Before he departed from the neighbourhood he was most anxious to visit our village church, since ecclesiastical architecture is one of his many interests." He looked at her and smiled gravely as she succumbed to a guilty blush and turned away - while I did my utmost to control my twitching mouth, "..and as Mr. Filbertson was kind enough," she continued with regained composure, " to combine that laudable purpose with one of accompanying me home, I felt it only right to offer his some trifling refreshment..."

"Oh come dear lady, you are too modest by far! Not so much a plain repast as a noble feast!" Mr Filbertson interposed gallantly, waving his plump hands above the well-laden table in a gesture of beneficence.

"...before he departs this evening by train on the journey back to his school near Shrewsbury," my mother concluded with the guilty blush still hovering on her cheek.

"School? Mr. Filbertson is surely not still a pupil?" I retorted mischievously. I saw a shadow of displeasure disturb the cool equanimity of his features.

"No, Ellen," he said, gazing at me with his pale-blue watery eyes, " the school belongs to me. It is a boys' boarding school, well established and of good reputation, and I am its headmaster." He spoke in the rather condescending tones that schoolmasters adopt when addressing their pupils.

I must say that I found his manner a little chilling, and I resolved to treat him with a trifle more respect than I had hitherto shown. After all, as my painful experience of the morning had amply demonstrated, teachers were more than capable of treating naughty young girls with an iron hand - and I only had to look at him to know that Albert Filbertson, if sufficiently provoked, would prove no exception.

Wouldn't you know it - another headmaster is introduced in Ellen's story to make a significant impression on her.