I stayed with Abel in a London hotel yesterday, waiting for him to do his day’s work before we could do something cultural (or kinky, or both) in the evening. He departed at his usual (ungodly) hour, and I delayed going out to get breakfast until the rush hour crowd finished rushing.I went out at about 9.15, and the street lined with office buildings was pleasantly empty. As I cut across a courtyard towards a cafe, I saw the last of the office plankton running for the glass doors and faux-marble vestibules.
In the middle of the courtyard there in a nest of stone benches. They were empty but for one young woman in a smart grey suit. She sat with her legs crossed, dangling one of her sensible shoes off her toes and sucking on a cigarette. She had the glassy stare of somebody far, far away, and a frown of somebody who…
…was waiting for her punishment, actually. Well do I know that look.
It was all law firms and financial companies around there; the woman’s clothes looked expensive enough that she could have worked in any of those. Perhaps, she had screwed up on a big case, setting it back through an avoidable mistake. Maybe she’d miscalculated on accounts.
Whatever it was, her immediate superior – perhaps, the CEO himself – was summoning her to his office this morning. She had a 9.30 appointment, and was told to clear her diary for at least an hour.
She knows what this means. Their company is notorious for their cutting-edge management practices; she had signed a release when they took her on. She knows that all managers have a particular implement of discipline in their desk drawer. What it is, depends on personal preference and physique, but she knows that her own manager keeps an old razor strop with fraying edges.
When she goes in, she will have a stern lecture. She would have to take off her jacket, raise her skirt and bend over his desk. Her underwear would stay chastely on – nobody wanted to be sued for sexual harassment here! – but even the full cotton knickers she wore specifically for the event, would be no help when the strop cracks against her bottom.
She would get six strokes in the first instance. After that, she would be ordered into the corner, where she would have to gather her thoughts before sitting down at the desk and typing out what she thought she had done wrong, and how she would avoid similar mistakes in the future.
Finally, chastened, embarrassed and still in pain from her whipping, she would be back over the desk for the final dose of the strop: six more, to make sure the lesson has sunk home.
So you see, she knows exactly what’s going to happen as she sits there on the bench, alone. The company makes no secret of the discipline procedure, and she has studied it very carefully. There is no way out.
But in the meantime she sits in the courtyard, alone. She is counting minutes. In too short a time, she’ll be counting strokes.
It was a very costly mistake for the firm. No doubt about that.
But we’ve all (almost) sent an email to the wrong person, haven’t we? So she gave away the company’s strategy for the case, and now they’re down the tube hundreds of thousands! Obviously they’re pretty angry about it. And yet, ‘there but for the grace of God go I’…
One’s heart goes out to her, don’t you think?
You know, it occurs to me that the world you two paint would be an awfully grim and frightening one for anyone but us kinksters. Well, for us too, but we’d like it, so that’s ok.
Megs – LOL I for one wouldn’t want to live in the worlds I paint sometimes!
“cutting-edge management practices” [snicker]
This is a particularly good fantasy! I politely disagree with Megs — I don’t find that world grim at all! It would be a very well mannered world, a lovely place to live!
And I think nowadays we sort of forget that it once was not too different from the world in which *everyone* lived. And people survived (even thrived!) A beating is just a bit of pain — it has a beginning and ending and it doesn’t kill anyone. The most powerful thing is the psychology of discipline, and that seems to pretty much only do everyone good.
So, quite seriously, I think that opposed to “grim,” Haron and Abel’s world would be a more vibrant place, even to vanilla people!
I like this fantasy. It makes me think of a lawyer I know, who can be often found smoking outside, and always seems to have the weight of the world on her shoulders. I won’t be able to look at her in the same way now.
Haron, in my childhood and youth corporal punishment was common in home and school.
I also knew of several couples where the wife was disciplined as necessary, as a child who had been on the receiving end of the cane and tawse, I was well aware of the signs.
My wife’s parents had an old fashioned marriage, what we now call domestic discipline.
That was the marriage my wife expected and got.
It wasn’t a horrid world, my in laws were married for over fifty years and happily so, Mel and I had a wonderful marriage until she died.
Divorce was rare and marriage councillors even rarer.
I wouldn’t dream of saying that the good old days were always better, but in some aspects this was definitely the case.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
Ohhh, yum!
*Thanks!*
But, a typo, I presume?? …
“back over the desk for the final dose of the strop” …haha, I don’t think that would be looked on particularly well, for some reason!
The grim part comes in when the avoidable mistake was not hers but her superior’s and she is still blamed. The lovely part is, when that happens, she disciplines the superior for messing up her work.
I would really love to work for such a company 😉 The only risk is that I would not be very productive, trying to earn more punishments all the time…
Have a great ´spanking weekend,
tina from Sweden
Frankly, Haron, I might return to the practice of law if I thought that such cutting practices existed in that world. Alas, such is not the case and it is unfortunately more likely she is contemplating reporting the matter to the firm’s insurer and explaining to the Executive Committee/Manager why the fees received might need to be refunded to the client! More’s the pity! and needless to say, I like your verson much better – very hot!