From the Top Shelf - Love's Passionate Frenzied Fury, part 3

After you have refreshed your memory of part one and part two, we will continue with the final installment of Rollin Hand's sweet story about writing a bodice ripper.

The novel was a smashing success. Love’s Passionate Frenzied Fury, it seemed, was all the rage in romance circles. So it was with some anticipation that Arthur observed the latest of Eleanor’s props being loaded off the delivery van and carried into the basement. Oh, say, he thought. What’s this? School desks. A blackboard. A teacher’s desk, the kind that sits in front of a classroom. A school scene, she’s writing a schoolroom scene. At once Arthur conjured a picture in his mind of an English boarding school, and a classroom. A stern headmaster wearing a black gown and one of those flat hats with the little tassel on it, flexing a switch, or what?---a cane. That was it. They called it a cane, but it wasn’t a walking stick, no. It was bendy and swishy. All the better for striping girlish bottoms. And Eleanor, clad in a cute pleated skirt, very short of course, her hair in pigtails, called to front by a stern schoolmaster, played by yours truly, there to be reprimanded most severely for some fault. I wonder what the plot is, he thought. Does the schoolmaster give her good spanking and then she falls in love with him? He was getting aroused already.

Arthur positively beamed at Eleanor’s intrusion into his study. Now he was expecting her and all too happy to assist.

“Arthur I’m afraid I need your help again.” A look of consternation on her face.

Arthur spread his arms and smiled. “Of course my dear. I’m all yours. I will gladly assist you in any way I can.”

“Oh, I am so relieved to hear you say that, Arthur. I’m having a devil of a time with my current book, Love’s Frenzied Furious Passion. It’s my heroine, you see. I have trouble understanding her feelings and I rather thought you and I could…”

“Sort of act it out?” Eleanor nodded hopefully. Arthur replied, “Of course, dear. Whatever you require.”

“Oh, thank you dear. This may be difficult, but…”

Arthur held up his hand stopping her. “I assure you Eleanor that I will do whatever it takes and I will not shirk away from what needs to be done so you can understand your heroine. You have my pledge. As your Miss Cadivec frequently says, ‘we must be prepared to suffer for art’s sake’, so if suffer we must, so be it.”

Taking her arm he said, with a twinkle in his eye, “I saw the schoolroom equipment being carried into the basement. Shall we?”

Arthur followed Eleanor into the basement observing the twitching of her hips under the tight skirt. He wondered how she would look bent over for the cane, panties lowered, lush bottom bared. How many, he wondered? Didn’t they give them in multiples of six or something? For some reason the phrase ‘six of the best’ came to mind. Well, they’d be the best all right.

Eleanor turned to Arthur and smiled, “Now,” she said, hugging Arthur and giving him a big hug and kiss, “I’m so glad you are enthusiastic about this one. I’ll tell you all about it. You see in my latest book, my heroine Elizabeth is in love with Lord Rockwell. But she is only a tutor in his household, hired by Lord Rockwell to tutor his favorite nephew Billy of whom he is very fond. She thinks that he may be warming up to her and she wants the relationship to go further. And also she is very fond of Billy, but Billy is a bit of a rogue, you see and has run off to play instead of attending to his studies.”

“And so Lord Rockwell is put out with her for failing to tutor Billy properly?”

Eleanor cocked her head, “Well….not exactly, but yes, sort of. You see Elizabeth is torn, she is anguished. She knows what must happen and she fears losing both the affection of Lord Rockwell and Billy. And what I need to do is to feel her anguish, the awful wrenching of her soul, the pain…”

“That she feels when Lord Rockwell canes her?” said Arthur hopefully.

“Well….not exactly. You see she must cane Billy. Severely. Imagine her feelings. She must severely punish the boy she is so fond of for his own good, and imagines that Lord Rockwell will hate her for it, but it is her duty and she must. I need for her to feel the remorse for every stinging swish of the cane that she applies to Billy’s tender backside. The two conflicting emotions of solemn duty and tender sympathy along with her fear that she may lose Lord Rockwell forever. I need to feel that it truly hurts her worse than it hurts Billy!”

“But…But what about Lord Rockwell? Don’t you want me to be Lord Rockwell when he finds out and…?

Eleanor looked at Arthur sharply. “Lord Rockwell? Who said anything about Lord Rockwell? I need for you to be Billy, of course.”

Arthur was stunned. He stood frozen to the spot as the awful realization dawned. “You mean you want to cane…”

Eleanor nodded, beaming. She strode over to a box, fished around in it, and pulled out a yellow crook handled cane about 3 feet long. Arthur stared mesmerized as it quivered back and forth in her hand like a snake about to bite. She held it in both hands flexing it. She could bend it almost into a circle. “Yes, of course dear. And I’m so glad you so enthusiastically agreed to help. You do understand what Miss Cadivec means when she says we must suffer for our art. It won’t be easy. I intend to give Billy a bakers dozen with this swishy wand. Hard, too. I must feel her pain as she delivers each excruciating stripe. Billy’s howls of pain will sear her soul.” She swooshed through the air for effect. It made a scary whine. “You will howl for me, won’t you dear?” She asked expectantly.

Arthur stood there, dumbstruck.

“Now hurry up.” She pointed the cane at him meaningfully. “Your clothes for the scene are in the box. I’m afraid the short woolen schoolboy pants may be a little tight, dear. All I could get was a ‘small’. But don’t worry,” she added with a wicked grin, “they will come down soon enough. I intend to cane naughty Billy completely bare.”

Arthur never saw that one coming, but let's hope he enjoys suffering for Eleanor's art.