From the Top Shelf - A Seaside Encounter, Part 1

I have a real treat for you today. It's the first part of a rather long story by Janus magazine contributor R.T. Mason. The tale is a lovely mixture of fantasy and reality, with some role-playing thrown in for good measure. I hope you like it as much as I do.

If you walked past the holiday chalets you came to a stretch of beach where nobody much seemed to go although it was attractive enough, scrub land and the open sea with a narrow ribbon of beach between. That Thursday afternoon, with a hint of rain in the brisk offshore wind, there seemed to be no one there at all and she had walked for perhaps half a mile quite alone. And then she saw him, a lone figure standing gazing out to sea. Afterwards, looking back, it was tempting to think she sensed something about him, some special quality, even then. But she knew that, really, she was just being fanciful.

She had been there almost a week, the first half of a two-week holiday with her parents and though she would never have hurt their feelings by admitting it, she had begun to get bored. Due, without doubt, primarily to the fact that Bob wasn't there. Bob, due to become her fiance in a month's time, was 19 like her, and, by the worst possible timing, had had to go off on a company training course on those very two weeks.

It had come up at the last minute, someone else's cancellation creating a vacancy that Bob couldn't afford to miss. Jane had already booked her own holidays from work so there was no real option but to go ahead, with just her parents for company. To spend time wandering rather forlornly about in the little holiday town and along the beaches, since she wasn't all that keen on simply sitting in the sun because she burned easily, and anyway it had been a little too cool for that. So she'd been wandering around, thinking of Bob and how wonderful it would be if he was beside her right now.

That's what she was thinking when she walked around the point, and saw him; that lone male figure. Then the rain started, but she didn't feel like going back to that boring boarding house just yet, so she strode on, protected against the English weather in slacks and an anorak over her tee-shirt. As she got closer she could see the man was older, maybe in his fifties, a tallish man with grey hair, a walking-stick in his hand.

She was aiming to pass behind him further up the beach and not stop, but as she approached he broke off his reverie and turned round, then walked back up the beach towards her. He called a polite "Good morning" through the wind and waved. She stopped.

Smiling he said, "It'll be raining heavily very soon, I fear. You don't look dressed for a downpour."

He was evidently not a summer visitor, with that stick and his highly polished, expensive-looking, shoes. And that so-educated accent! She found she had stopped and was chatting to him without really intending to. Now when she looked back, there clearly was something about him. Those really piercing eyes and the air of...well...authority. Of being used to giving commands. And having them obeyed - unquestioningly.

He said, "You'll get soaking wet very soon, you know. Why don't you come back to my place and shelter until the worst is over? I only live just over the top. I'll make you a nice warm cup of tea. I don't think the rain will last too long."

The rain was becoming distinctly heavier and she thought of the distance she had to walk back. She looked at him, wondering if she should listen to all the warnings she'd been brought up with, but then said impulsively. "I'd love to. Thank you."

They reached his home just as the rain began to pour, a largish old house about five minutes walk back from the coast and protected by a windbreak of pines. Inside he took her wet anorak and she removed her woolly hat, shaking out her long, blonde hair. She was at once aware of his sharply appraising eyes; taking in her softly pretty face and also the rest of her body. She felt her face colouring up.

Because her tight yellow tee-shirt, she was only too aware, particularly with such a thin, seamless bra underneath, clearly revealed her full firm breasts and clearly delineated her button nipples. Her equally tight white slacks, clinging to her shapely bottom, likewise showed just about everything, including a clear outline of her bikini briefs.

She was dressed fashionably just like other teenage girls but she felt herself blushing madly as he looked. The problem was that she spent most of her time with men of Bob's age who were at ease with current fashions but with this rather distinguished older man she felt...well...rather naked.

His eyes suddenly stopped their frank appraisal as he smiled and said, "I'm awfully sorry. I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Robert Kendall."

Recovering her composure a little, she replied, "And I'm Jane...Jane Williams."

He made her some tea, and then sitting on the sofa in his sitting room she found she was telling him just about everything about herself, while his brown eyes gazed almost hypnotically at her - but mainly at her nipples. Why hadn't she worn something a little less revealing, she thought, feeling slightly uncomfortable, but then how could she have known...?

And, after she'd told him about the holiday and how bored she was, he said, "If you're so much at a loose end, why not come and do some work for me?"

He was writing a history of that part of the country and of his family who lived there for many years. He said he had a regular assistant but she was away on holiday.

"It's just secretarial work," he said, "but quite varied." Then smiling, he added, "I can promise you I won't let you get bored."

It was a shock, his offer coming out of the blue like that. She coloured up, then found herself saying, "Yes, I'd love to," without really thinking. When she had time to think she didn't regret her decision, it was just what she needed, but she was slightly startled by the fact that her initial response had been automatic as if somehow she was unable to refuse him.

"Good!" he said. "Splendid! I'm sure we will get on excellently!"

Shortly after that he got up and walked over to the window; it seemed to be brightening, he said. She went over and indeed the rain had just about stopped. As she stood beside him she suddenly felt his hand lightly on her waist. It sent a tingling shock right through her.

He said quietly, "You're quite a find, you know, Jane. Such a pretty girl and such a perfect age. Just 19. On the very brink of womanhood but still very young and malleable."

The firm hand squeezed gently and she just stood there, helpless, and beginning to tremble slightly. The soft voice continued,"Possibly young enough still to need a little firm guidance, eh, Jane?"

Then he said, quite casually, "Did you get that kind of firm guidance at school, Jane? Here, for example, on this lovely little bottom?"

As he spoke his hand moved down then slid over her bottom, handling it through the skin tight slacks as if it were his own private property.

She gasped - it was an almost unbelievable thing to do when she had met him only half an hour before. In considerable confusion she moved away, turning her bottom away from him. But the sensation of his hand remained as if it had left some indelible imprint.

Calmly, he repeated. "Well did you, Jane? Ever get this smacked or caned?"

She stammered in hapless confusion, "N-no of course not."

He laughed. "So neglectful of your teachers. A girl's bottom is simply made for discipline."

She was still trying to digest this and make some kind of a response when he said, very firmly, "Now, down to business. About tomorrow. I'd like you here at 9..."


* * *


She walked back along the beach with her mind in turmoil. Half of her thoughts were saying she just shouldn't turn up. Phone him and say she'd changed her mind. Because she had the distinct feeling that this was something she couldn't handle! He was like no one she had ever met before, a man to whom she felt automatically subservient, and that was clearly dangerous. And that self-confident hand on her bottom; she kept reliving the memory and each time it made her go hot and cold.

But the other half of her was saying, you have to turn up because you promised. You can't go back on it now. And she knew it was this half she would follow, because for all the risk and the danger she was shivering, not just with apprehension, but from pure excitement.

She told her parents she had met a distinguished writer and was going to do some casual secretarial work. "Oh that will be nice," said her mother. "Give you something to occupy your mind. I've been thinking how lost you seem without Bob."

Yes, but if only you knew the rest, Mum, she thought to herself. What on earth am I getting into? She rang Bob later. The course was quite interesting, he said, but he really missed her.

"I miss you too," she replied automatically down the line, then realised that she had hardly thought about him at all since her experience with Major Robert Kendall. She knew he was a Major after looking up his number in the phone book.

Her mind went back to what he'd said. About firm guidance and caning at school. It was just ridiculous - girls didn't get caned at school these days. But there was something - a memory from school which Major Kendall's remark had triggered.

She suddenly realised that Major Kendall wasn't completely unlike anyone she'd ever met, after all, because there had been Captain Maitland. When she was 16 she had changed schools from one with an all female staff to St. Margaret's, which had two male teachers. One, Mr. Fulford, had not been very exciting for he was fat, middle aged and bald, but the other one, Captain Maitland, had all the adolescent girls swooning. He was an ex-naval officer, tall and distinguished looking. In that respect very much resembling Major Kendall.

Captain Maitland had been a firm, no-nonsense, disciplinarian and it was rumoured that he spanked girls in private but the girls never heard anything other than rumours. Though he had left the school in mysterious circumstances just about six months after Jane joined.

She recalled a girl of her own age, Sarah Kemp, with whom she had become very friendly, slipping into her bed one night and holding her tightly. Then Sarah said, breathlessly, "Don't you wish I was Captain Maitland here in bed with you?" Then, "And what about if he called you to his room and put you over his lap with your knickers down for a spanking? Wouldn't that just blow your mind?"

She hadn't thought much about it before Sarah's remark but after that she savoured it nightly in her dormitory bed. Being summoned to Captain Maitland's room and being told, in that firm authoritarian voice, to get her knickers down and then bend over his desk. And then the electric sensation of hard male hand on soft bare female bottom...

That night for the first time during the holiday, as she lay in bed it was not Bob she was thinking of but two older authoritarian figures, Captain Maitland and Major Kendall. And guiltily, she ran through the same scene with both of them. She was a schoolgirl again in the St. Margaret's uniform, the short grey pleated skirt and the red and grey striped tie. And that straw hat with its red and grey ribbon squarely on her blonde head.

First in Captain Maitland's room and then in Major Kendall's the straw boater was removed and placed carefully on the desk and then her hands went up under the short skirt to her regulation brief white knickers, to slip them down to her knees. And then her bared bottom was either spanked over the master's lap or bent over his desk and caned.

The scenes were feverishly exciting, an excitement tinged with guilt and fear that she was allowing herself to have such thoughts. She tried to excuse them by telling herself it was just sexual frustration that was causing these bizarre thoughts, but...

Ah, so we know Jane is thrilled by the thought of being spanked. But will she get her wish? You will learn the truth next week.