A slavegirl walks warily behind an opulently dressed man who has just bought her. He is only a steward, not a master himself, but he comes from what appears to be a grand household – the household where the girl now belongs. She was bought for her skill in the kitchen, and is pleased with herself for having fetched a handsome price, but she can’t help but be worried. A new household. New rules to learn, new people to find a way to live with.
“Hurry up, girl,” the steward snaps. “Pay attention to the road, not the clouds in the sky.”
He delivers the girl directly to the kitchen, and hands her over to the cook, with the words, “A dreamer, this one.”
“You’ll have no time for dreaming,” snaps the cook, a fierce-looking large woman. “Put your things in that corner by the window, that’s where you’ll be sleeping. Wash yourself at the pump in the stable yard. After that, come straight to me, and no dawdling.”
The girl is desperate to make a good impression. She does what she’s told, at speed. When she comes back into the kitchen, dripping with cold water from the pump, the cook’s gaze falls on her immediately.
“Good, good. You’re ready to get to work. But first, come over here and bend over this table.”
“What? Why?” the girl blurts out, even thought she had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t question any instruction she was given, particularly at first.
“Because I need to show you what happens if you mess up in my kitchen. A fair warning. Come here, now.” The cook is holding an enormous wooden spoon.
The girl bends over wordlessly. It hasn’t been so long since her last beating – the cook in her previous master’s house had also been quick with a spoon – but at least she had earned that one. She can’t decide whether it’s better or worse to be spanked for the first time in the new house without having done anything to deserve it.
The cook brushes the hem of the girl’s tunic out of the way, and slaps down the spoon on her naked bottom. The other kitchen slaves don’t pause for an instant, even though there’s a spanking going on under their noses. The girl bites her lip, because to scream now wouldn’t be a done thing – if you whine and whimper from a simple spanking, there’s no hope for you when there comes a time for a more serious punishment – and it will.
The spoon smacks down a couple of dozen times, each slap painful and precise. The girl bites her lip until it hurts as much as her bottom, but she doesn’t make a sound.
“Good, good,” says the cook, lowering the spoon. “Now you know what happens if you cross me in my kitchen. Do you?”
“Yes, cook,” says the girl meekly, her bottom stinging under her tunic.
“Good. Get to peeling carrots.”
The girl nods and moves to her first task in the new house. She wonders ruefully when somebody will ask her her name.
I tend to have a “fierce-looking large woman” in some of my fantasies too. Sometimes, I worry it might be cconstrued as discrimination against “fierce-looking large woman” that they do the meanest things!