The Carrot and the Stick (18 page)

Anyway, when I was thirteen I was placed in a hostel. It was like a remand home for kids who had been in trouble with the law.'

Natasha paused and drank some more wine. Celeste refilled her glass.

‘To start with I quite liked it,' Natasha said, swirling the wine around in her glass. ‘In a funny way, I had more freedom. I liked being with the other kids. Then two of the boys got into trouble, serious trouble, and the regime changed. A new warden was appointed and everything became much stricter. By now I was sixteen and doing really well at school. By and large I behaved myself; I wasn't interested in getting into trouble. But it didn't work out like that. The chief warden, Mr Chambers, used to pick on me. He was always telling me off for tiny things, mostly imaginary misdemeanours and mistakes. He just liked telling me off.'

She finished her wine in one gulp, and Celeste replenished all the glasses. ‘Go on,' she said to Natasha. ‘I didn't mean to interrupt.'

‘One Sunday when the place was empty I came across him in the corridor. He stopped me and said he'd received a complaint from another girl that I wasn't showering often enough. It was a lie, of course; I used to shower every morning. I've always been very particular about cleanliness. I think he just made it up.

‘Anyway, he told me to go and have a shower immediately. I said I already had and he said I should have another one. Then, when I was in the shower, the door opened and he was standing there. He said he had come to make sure I washed properly. He made me wash my breasts, then between my legs, front and back, over and over again, and after I'd dried myself he inspected me - far more closely than he should have.

‘And that was the start of it. I wish now I had made a fuss at the time, reported him to someone, but I was too naïve and scared. After that, he used to pick on me all the time, usually when we were alone and no one else could see.

‘A week or two later he told me that he had a bad report from my school and that I should report to him that evening in his office. It wasn't a bad report; it just wasn't one of my best. After that though, because of him, my schoolwork did begin to go downhill.

‘Then one day, in his office, he told me he was going to punish me by spanking me. He made me lie over his lap and he turned up my skirt and pulled down my panties. I was crying even before he smacked me, I was so scared. It lasted a long time but he never hit me very hard. When it was all over I was extremely relieved. Then he told me to come back again the next evening, and when I went back he said he wanted to inspect the marks, to see if I was okay. He made me stand in front of him and pull down my panties. He poked and prodded me and then sent me away.

‘Dirty bastard,' Celeste said, utterly engrossed in what Natasha was confiding in them.

Natasha nodded. ‘He was, and I was just too young to understand. To me he was an authority figure, someone to be obeyed. After that he used to find fault with me as often as he could and it was always the same routine. He would spank me one night, usually late at night after lights out, and I would have to go back the next evening to show him my bottom. Hardly a night went by when I did not have to bare my bottom in front of him - either for a spanking or for an inspection of the results of the previous spanking.

‘And I used to hate the inspections more than the spanking. He got into the habit of making me lie over his lap for the assessment as if I was going to be spanked again. He never actually touched my sex, but he used to poke and prod me. He liked to run the palm of his hand round and round over my buttocks, pulling the cheeks of my bottom apart and asking me if it hurt. I have never told anyone this. Do you want me to go on?'

‘Yes, we do,' Beth urged intensely, ‘so long as you don't mind talking about it.'

‘I suppose I guessed he was getting a kick out of it,' Natasha continued, ‘but I wasn't that sure. I just didn't understand enough, until one night. I had left my books in his room and I ducked back in straight after a spanking, without knocking, and low and behold he was wanking. I caught him with his cock in his fist. He tried to cover up and yelled at me to get out, but he knew I knew what he was doing.'

Beth giggled and Celeste snorted into her drink, spilling wine down her front.

‘It wasn't funny,' Natasha said. ‘It made things worse. The next time he called me in, two days later, he was different. The matron was there. He told me of my misdemeanour. I can't remember now what it was, but it was definitely something trivial. Then he said he was going to cane me. He made me take off my skirt and knickers and lie over his desk with my arms outstretched so that matron could hold me by the wrists. Then he caned me very hard, and I still had to go back for the inspection the following night. Matron was there again and this time I had to lie over her lap, naked from the waist down while Chambers watched. I was really sore from the cane, you can imagine, and she was not at all gentle. She slapped cream on my buttocks and rubbed it in roughly. I can still feel her stubby fingers pushing and probing, her nails digging into me.

‘It went on like that until I was old enough to leave; every time the welts would fade he would find some excuse to punish me again.'

Natasha stopped talking and picked up the camera again, eyeing the digital image of herself bending over. ‘That's why I wanted to see this, to see what he would have seen.'

‘What he saw was very beautiful, not that that excuses him, but it makes it more understandable,' Beth said, then taking the camera she added, ‘May I ask what you felt during a spanking?'

‘I hated him,' Natasha snapped vehemently.

‘But what did you feel about the actual spanking?'

‘Well,' she thought for a moment, ‘I don't suppose, deep down, that I really minded the spanking. Actually, I think it was probably quite a turn on. I just hated him, he was such a bullying creep.'

‘But if it was someone else spanking you?' Beth persisted.

Natasha raised her eyes to the ceiling, carefully assessing the question again. ‘I wouldn't mind, I think. It depends on who, though.'

Beth turned to Celeste with a triumphant smile. ‘I told you she was one of us,' she said.

‘One of us?' Natasha asked, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Celeste moved to the sofa to sit beside her. She took one of Natasha's hands in hers. ‘One of us,' she confirmed. ‘And as your place is so squalid, why don't you move in here?' She looked to Beth for approval. ‘She could move into my room - and share my bed until we get another one for her.'

‘No,' Beth countered, ‘that is not an option. You seem to forget, my dear young lodger, that this is my flat, so I decide who moves in and who shares with who. So, Natasha can share my room... and my bed.' She smiled calculatingly. ‘My bed is bigger, after all.'

Celeste made a moue of disapproval and cast a mean look in Beth's direction. ‘Go on, be like that,' Beth said, ‘and our new flatmate will learn all about house rules and house discipline sooner than you think.'

As she was speaking, Beth tilted up her nose and started to sniff the air. ‘In fact, if what I can smell is our supper burning, she will start her education as an observer this very evening.'

Celeste shrieked and rushed to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a glum look on her face and a blackened casserole in her hand. ‘That's the tuna pasta,' she grumbled.

‘Then we'll go out for supper,' Beth announced. ‘Celeste will pay, and she'll pay again when we come back.'

 

Two hours, two pizzas, and two bottles of wine later, the three girls returned to the flat carrying two suitcases of belongings from Natasha's flat. Over supper, Natasha had found out what she could about the other two. She was much cheered by Celeste's story, how the girl, her own age and with a similar education, had in the space of a day or two gone from no work and no future into a career with prospects. Could she, Natasha, follow a similar route? She was bored with modelling and was quite prepared to do it just part-time.

‘I've had to use all my assets,' Celeste had said with a slightly inebriated giggle. ‘Especially the one I'm sitting on!'

‘I wouldn't mind, as long as I was putting it to good use,' Natasha replied, also feeling the effects of the drink.

‘All in good time,' Beth said.

Back in the flat they made coffee and began to get ready for bed. Celeste wandered off unsteadily to run a bath while Beth and Natasha remained behind in the sitting room. Natasha took Beth by the hand and thanked her for letting her move in. ‘I feel that my life is about to change,' she said. ‘I will do anything to work with you, to learn from you.'

‘You will,' Beth said succinctly, ‘but I'll put you to the test first.'

They could hear Celeste leaving the bathroom and moving about in the hall, and Beth called her in. She appeared wearing her fluffy robe; otherwise she was naked. Beth made her lie over her lap on the sofa, and lifted the hem of the robe. ‘Spank her,' she commanded Natasha.

‘I - I,' Natasha stammered, her eyes wide.

‘She ruined our supper,' Beth pointed out, ‘so she deserves to be spanked.'

‘Oh no, I couldn't,' Natasha protested. She looked pleadingly at Beth. ‘I am more accustomed to being spanked,' she added, by way of explanation.

Beth picked up one of Natasha's hands and laid it on Celeste's buttocks. ‘Spank her,' she repeated.

Natasha slapped Celeste twice, feeble slaps, and then stopped. ‘I can't do it,' she moaned. ‘She's too lovely.'

Beth spanked Celeste hard. ‘What would you like to do?' she asked Natasha. She spanked Celeste's bottom again. ‘When you see this?' And she spanked it a third time.

‘I would like... I would like to kiss her,' Natasha blurted.

Beth spanked Celeste again. ‘Kiss her?' she asked, bringing her palm down crisply yet again.

‘Yes, and make love to her,' Natasha explained shyly.

Beth continued spanking her younger friend. ‘Then you shall when I've finished with her,' she said. ‘She'll have a nice red bottom and you can kiss it better.' She delivered a ferocious flurry of blows on the reddened flesh while Celeste moaned and wriggled but made no serious attempt to get away.

After a few minutes, Natasha reached out and grasped Beth's arm. ‘That's enough,' she said, falling to her knees between Celeste's legs. ‘Oh, you poor thing,' she murmured, burying her face between Celeste's buttocks. ‘Your poor bottom.' She licked the crimson buttocks and then sank lower, her mouth pressed against Celeste's sex, her tongue probing wetly.

Beth was content to watch and stroke Natasha's silky hair, while with the other hand she stroked Celeste's taut bottom, allowing one finger to probe within her tight anus. She enjoyed the spectacle of her new young and beautiful friend bringing the other to a noisy, writhing climax on her lap.

‘All for one, and one for all,' Beth purred contentedly, and put paid to any talk about the sleeping arrangements. That night, all three girls slept in Beth's bed.

 

 

 

Talking to oneself is the first sign of madness, Beth said to herself as she studied her reflection in the mirror, but it did not stop her conversation. She was not mad, she was happy. The job was going well, Natasha was a good and willing flatmate who actually paid the rent from her modelling income without being asked, and even Celeste coughed up on demand now that she was earning a salary and could not plead poverty. The sun was shining, the world looked beautiful, and her mind and body were fulfilled - oh, so fulfilled.

What could be better?

But the reflection wagged its finger at Beth. At times like this, the reflection said, things go wrong. It is the law of nature. When your head is in the air you don't see the banana skin at your feet.

Two hours later, Beth and Natasha had checked into a suite at an ultra-modern west end hotel. Across one end of the lobby as they arrived hung a huge sign:
Power to the Future
. Dozens of men and a few women were darting around studying notice boards on easels, proclaiming the times and the places of various lectures and symposia. Some made notes on clipboards, others gathered in groups making polite conversation whilst trying to decipher their companions' lapel badges.

‘It's all go,' Natasha said as they were heading to the lift.

‘There's electricity in the air,' Beth replied with a giggle.

Power to the Future was the biennial gathering of the huge utility companies from across Europe and North America, and Beth and Natasha were on a scouting mission. The companies represented at the conference were among the largest in the industrial sector, and an advertising contract with just one of them could keep a relatively small advertising company off the breadline for years.

‘If we've got to go to that conference,' Beth had said two days before, ‘we'll go in style.' She explained to Natasha how the only way to make good contacts and to seek new business was to be there and to mix with the delegates. That was why she had booked the suite and why she was taking Natasha. ‘With your looks...' she said, allowing her thoughts to drift.