Bottoms Up Read online

  Smiling now, he picked up the photograph. They said a picture was worth a thousand words.

  Tonight he’d make sure it was true.

  THE HARDEST PART

  Alison Tyler

  I’m over his lap. I’ve been needing a spanking for too long, and he’s been making me wait. In spite of everything I’ve done, he’s ignored the signals. I’ve been bratty. I’ve been bad. I may as well have worn a T-shirt with the words SPANK ME in bold scarlet letters across the front.

  I’ve been that desperate.

  But now that I’m here, I’d rather be anywhere else. Name the place, and I’d rather be there: in line at the DMV; waiting in the doctor’s office; sitting at the back of coach on a packed flight.

  I’m scared, more scared than usual, because he’s taking his time. I stare at the floor, at the swirls of crimson and emerald and cornflower blue in the Oriental carpet. I stare at the ornate carved wood of the antique chair legs. I stare at his engineer boots, the scuffed black leather; boots we bought together ten years ago on Melrose, boots I’ve seen quite often from this position.

  The air seems to shimmer in front of me.

  The blood pounds in my ears.

  Why was I in such a rush to find myself over his lap? What was so urgent about him paddling my ass?

  I know exactly what he’s doing as he strokes me through my short pleated skirt. He’s taking his time to let me think of all of my transgressions. He’s letting the moment sink in.

  With infinite slowness, he slips my panties down my legs. My knickers are pink with hearts printed in a row, and now, they dangle from my ankles: not on, not off. I’m primed, ass up, totally exposed, waiting. He has to start now, doesn’t he? He has to spank me now.

  But he won’t be rushed. Instead, he strokes my bare skin with his palm. There is no pain yet. There is only that rush of fear, starting in the base of my stomach and radiating outward.

  Just spank me, I want to scream. Please…just…spank… me…

  But he doesn’t. He makes me wait.

  And fuck Tom Petty for being right. The waiting is the hardest part. I force myself to be mute, eyes clenched shut, heart pounding so fast, so loud. If he had started right away, it’d be halfway over by now. My feet would be kicking. I’d be trying to stay still, but failing. I’d be crying, almost begging, instead of being lost here in this horrible zone, this no man’s land of misery.

  I arch upward, trying to tell him with my body what I need him to do. Trying to insist from a submissive position what must happen.

  To my horror, he simply pets me some more, soft gentle strokes on my naked ass, until I can’t help myself: I laugh. And that’s when he says—oh, fuck him. Fuck him—“You think this is funny?”

  My “No” is a whisper.

  “Then why are you laughing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You better come up with a reason pretty damn fast.”

  I’m facedown, over his lap, with my idiotic heart-patterned knickers dangling from my ankles. My face is flushed. My eyes sting already with tears. And still the silent laughter shakes me. I bite my lip, hard enough to leave marks, and pray that he’ll start.

  “Why are you laughing?” His tone is beyond menacing. If his tone could cut, I’d be bleeding.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him honestly—because I don’t. I don’t have any idea why I’m laughing. “I’m sorry,” I try next.

  Then he says those words, those magic words. “No, you’re not. But you will be.”

  Finally, his hand comes down, hard. Then again, just as hard. He doesn’t hesitate now. He spanks steadily, with force, driving out the worries. Driving out the fear.

  With the pain comes the relief.

  I won’t laugh any more now.

  We both know that.

  I won’t laugh for a long time.

  A FIRM UNDERSTANDING

  Elizabeth Coldwell

  I had always wanted to have my husband’s arse spanked.

  Stephen has the most incredible arse. It wasn’t the first thing I noticed about him—that was his sparkling blue eyes, peering out from beneath a spiky blond fringe, as the head of human resources introduced him as the newest member of the magazine’s design team. But as he turned and walked out of my office, I couldn’t help but admire the way his jeans clung to his firm buttocks and imagine how they might look, naked and glowing, after they had received a thorough paddling.

  I didn’t think at the time I would ever do more than fantasize about that arse; after all, he was twenty-five, twelve years younger than me, and there were plenty of girls nearer his own age who would be prepared to elbow me sharply aside in their attempts to date him. But, hard as they tried, he didn’t seem to be interested in any of them. And then, following the company’s monthly after-work drinks session in the bar round the corner, he came back to my place and never left, except to collect his possessions from his rented flat. That had been three years ago; and though we were decidedly adventurous in bed and he was fully aware of my spanking fantasy, we had never lived it out.

  The problem was that though I was desperate to see his arse being bared and marked, I didn’t actually want to mark it myself. I wasn’t a top; I was a voyeur. While there were any number of professional dommes who would have happily punished my husband for a suitable fee, and let me watch in the bargain, I wasn’t turned on by the thought of him paying homage to another woman. He was no groveling schoolboy or sniveling wretch, the standard figures of submissive fantasy; he was a strong character and in my mind he needed to be disciplined by a different kind of authority figure—a male one.

  It was the thought of being punished by a man that made Stephen apprehensive. By the time he’d reached senior school, the cane had been phased out and he’d never lived with the threat of any penalty more serious than being prevented from taking part in football practice. It took me a long time to convince him that watching him being disciplined would not weaken him in my eyes. If anything, I thought it would make him stronger, in the way that owning up to your vulnerability so often does.

  Even then, neither of us really believed I would ever find a way to make it happen…until the night he stayed late in the office and came home to find me reading my newest favorite website. I had stumbled across it by accident, looking for someone who might be offering the service I sought, and entered a world I had never known existed: a world where men shared tales they had written of spanking and discipline. Long, elaborate, almost obsessive stories described how young men were put through a variety of imaginative punishments by strict schoolmasters and sadistic army officers. I found them unbelievably exciting, not just because the people who had written them were so clearly describing a fantasy that turned them on beyond belief, but because in many of the stories the men being chastised bore a distinct physical resemblance to my well-built but boyish-looking husband. A couple of my particular favorites I bookmarked, reading and rereading them with my fingers busy in my panties, and that’s exactly what I was doing when Stephen caught me.

  So engrossed was I, I didn’t even realize he was in the room until I heard his voice at my ear: “ ‘The colonel walked along the row of young recruits, pulling down the pants of each in turn to reveal taut, white buttocks ripe and ready for punishment…’ Enjoying this, are we, Nina?”

  I turned guiltily, trying to pull down my skirt as Stephen grinned at me. He caught hold of my hand and put his own fingers down the front of my incriminatingly damp underwear. When he pulled them out, my juices glistened unmistakably in the cold glow of the computer screen. “Bloody hell, Nina, you’re soaking wet!” he exclaimed. “Whatever that is, it’s got you really excited.”

  Blushing redder than the backsides of the army recruits in the story I’d been reading, I began to share my guilty secret with my husband. He scrolled down the rest of the page, his eyes widening as the content of the story hit home. Finally, he said, “I never realized you were quite so into this.”

  I nod
ded. “You can see how much it turns me on. But it turns me on even more to think of you being one of the men in that story. Do you understand now why I want to make this happen?”

  “I think so,” he said. “But what do we do about it?”

  “Well, there’s a contact section on the site,” I began, as though the idea had only occurred to me that moment. “We could always start there…” Though I had never studied it with the intensity of the stories, I knew that around a quarter of the adverts were placed by men providing discipline services, the rest being from those offering what they described as their “firm rugby bottoms” or “cute, spankable arses” for punishment. Together, Stephen and I browsed the page, looking for a scenario that would satisfy our needs. Finally, I found one that sounded perfect: Male, forties, ex-army, offers strict military discipline to boys who need it. Briefs then bare, to make you come to a firm understanding. He was even based in the right area of the country for us. We both knew it had to be done.

  Within a week, we’d had a reply to the letter we had sent to his post office box. When we rang Lawrence—or “Sergeant Sterne” as he preferred to be known when he was in charge of a scene—he told us that though he had carried out punishments before an audience on many occasions, they didn’t usually include women. However, something about the letter we had written must have intrigued him, because in our case he was willing to make an exception. We were to visit him the following Friday night at eight, when Stephen would receive the chastisement he so clearly deserved.

  Lawrence gave us a list of instructions detailing how Stephen was to behave and dress. Any infringement of his rules, he said, would only lead to further punishment, leading me to wonder how many men deliberately disobeyed them in order to earn a few extra whacks. My role in all this was simple—I was only required to sit in a corner and watch. The implication that I would be doing so with a hand between my legs was obvious but unstated.

  On Friday night, we drove over to Lawrence’s home. I was almost disappointed to be parking the car in the drive of an unremarkable semidetached house in the suburbs, rather than the army barracks of my fantasy. Stephen had dressed as required, but he’d insisted on wearing a long overcoat on top, despite the warmth of the night. “I don’t want anyone looking in and seeing me like this,” he’d grumbled.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “they’ll just think you’re off to play sport.” Though what kind of sport I wasn’t exactly sure. He had on a plain white T-shirt, white shorts, and plimsolls. It was the shorts that were the source of his discomfort. Not having anything suitable in his wardrobe, he’d borrowed a pair from his brother, Tim, who played squash on a regular basis. Unfortunately, Tim was the skinny one in the family: the shorts were almost indecently tight on Stephen, outlining the bulge of his cock and balls and doing nothing to hide the fact that he, too, seemed to be more than a little excited by the events that were about to play out.

  I turned the engine off and leaned over in my seat, giving my husband a long, lingering kiss. “What’s that for?” he asked.

  “What you’re about to do,” I told him, my hand straying down to brush his cock through the straining, borrowed shorts. “And because I love you so much for doing it.”

  I could feel a giddy excitement in my stomach as I knocked on the front door. When Lawrence opened it, I was delighted to see he was dressed in olive green army fatigues. With his wiry build and closely cropped dark hair beneath his sergeant’s cap, he looked every inch the military martinet his advert had implied. The friendly man who had talked us through his requirements over the phone had disappeared, submerged beneath his Sergeant Sterne persona, as he barked at us to enter the house.

  As we walked along the hall we could see photos on the wall that appeared to be from Lawrence’s army days, and we had a brief glimpse into a tidy sitting room, but we weren’t allowed to linger. Instead, we were led straight down to the cellar, which Lawrence had kitted out as his punishment room. The walls were painted a drab, institutional brown and it was sparsely furnished, the room being dominated by a large oak desk and chair. There was also a camp bed in one corner, covered with scratchy-looking blue woolen blankets. I wanted to go over and make myself as comfortable as I could on it, but I felt as though I needed to ask his permission first.

  “Excuse me,” I said timidly, “but may I go and sit down?”

  I thought I saw a flicker of a smile in his dark eyes, as though he appreciated how readily I had accepted him as the disciplinarian. He gave a curt nod, and I scampered over to the low bed.

  “Now,” he said, turning to Stephen, “what’s this I hear about you having badly maintained gym kit?”

  “I…er…” Stephen stammered, clearly not quite sure how to respond. His composure seemed to have vanished the moment we stepped into the room.

  “Stand to attention when I’m talking to you, boy.” I felt my panties, already damp, growing wetter at the way the sergeant spat out the word boy. Even though my husband had a several inch height advantage over the other man, such was Lawrence’s dominant aura that he seemed physically the more imposing of the two.

  “Yes, Sir,” Stephen replied, hauling his shoulders back and keeping his arms tight to his sides. His upright stance only seemed to emphasize the way his cock was jutting out, as if desperate to be free of the confining shorts.

  “Look at you,” Sergeant Sterne continued. “Your shorts are far too small for you, your shoes are falling apart.” The latter was no lie; Stephen had found the old canvas shoes buried at the back of a cupboard, clearly on their last legs. “I’m going to have to teach you how to maintain your kit, aren’t I, boy?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Stephen repeated, little beads of perspiration dotting his brow. The atmosphere in the room was tense, everything moving toward the point at which he would be required to strip and present his arse for punishment.

  “Very well. Remove your plimsolls and hand them to me.”

  Stephen did as he was ordered, fingers fumbling with the laces. Sergeant Sterne turned them over, examining them. Finally, he placed the left shoe on his desk and went to stand in front of Stephen, flexing the other between his palms.

  “You obviously favor your right foot. The sole’s more worn,” he observed. “Means it’ll sting more when it lands.”

  “Yes, Sir. Anything you say, Sir.”

  “You don’t sound convinced, boy,” the sergeant said. “Well, there’s only one way to prove it to you. Bend over.”

  Stephen hesitated briefly. Then, as if conscious that failing to do as he was told would only add to his punishment, he assumed the position. The shorts were pulled so tight against his buttocks, I almost expected to hear them rip. However, the sergeant seemed satisfied. Confronted with a delicious, virgin arse like my husband’s, he could hardly have been otherwise.

  “Very nice,” he said, his mind clearly wandering for a second as he gazed at Stephen’s hunched-over form. Then he collected himself, regaining his authoritative tone. “A dozen, I think,” he announced, drawing back his arm.

  In the moment before the plimsoll made contact, I realized I was holding my breath. Everything I had fantasised about for so long was about to be made flesh, here in this dingy little room. I had built it up so much in my imagination, what if the reality fell short? What if Stephen somehow looked wrong and foolish? What if seeing him being spanked didn’t turn me on?

  And then the rubber sole thwacked hard against Stephen’s arse. He hissed between his teeth and almost let a swear word slip, then quickly pulled himself together. I felt a little, excited trickle of juice escape into my panties and knew in that moment I loved him more than I ever had.

  Neither man was paying attention to me, both preparing themselves in their own way for the next stroke, and I quietly hitched my dress up my bare legs and began to touch myself lightly through the fabric of my underwear.

  Again the sergeant delivered a measured blow to my husband’s backside, and again. Each time Stephen tried not to acknowle
dge quite how much it had pained him. By the time three crisp swats had been delivered to each cheek, I had the gusset of my panties pushed to one side and a finger buried in my pussy up to the knuckle. This wasn’t just living up to my fantasies, it was exceeding them, and there was still half of the punishment left.

  For a moment, Sergeant Sterne placed the plimsoll on his desk, deliberately in Stephen’s view, as though to remind him of what was to come. He reached for the waistband of the shorts, unfastening them briskly and yanking them down. Stephen had been instructed to wear nothing beneath them, and as his buttocks were revealed I could clearly see the vivid, rosy imprints of the plimsoll’s sole on his pale flesh.

  “You’re doing well, boy,” the sergeant commented, “but it’s always more satisfying to punish a miscreant on the bare. Do you think you can take it?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Stephen replied confidently.

  “Good lad,” the sergeant said. As he spoke, he reached round in front of Stephen, and grasped his cock. I let out a whimper of lust; I couldn’t help it. Both men’s heads turned, as though they had only just remembered I was there. I noticed, however, that Sergeant Sterne didn’t let go of Stephen’s erection.

  I didn’t remember negotiating whether or not he would be allowed to play with my husband in this way, but I realized now that I desperately wanted him to. Stephen’s expression was mortified, each set of cheeks flushing as red as the other, but he hadn’t asked the man to stop. I gave a slight nod, not quite sure which of them I was encouraging to continue.

  “Face forward, boy,” the sergeant ordered, finally loosing his grip on my husband’s cock. I took the opportunity to admire the view he presented, partially naked, partially punished. I wanted to trace my fingers over his flesh and feel the heat the swats had generated, but I knew I couldn’t intrude on the scene before it was over.