The Spanking Writers

I had my first bondage dream last night! When I woke up and realised what had happened, I was very excited – it’s cool to have your dreams to take a new turn.

In this dream I was a novice in a magical order. The following day was going to be my initiation into full members of the order, but first, my superiors told me, I had to go through a ritual ordeal, so that my magic potential got unlocked.

The ordeal went like this: I was taken to an empty courtyard. In the middle of it grew an ancient oak tree. I was stripped naked and tied to this tree, facing outwards, and told that I had to spend the night like this. I could ask to be untied any time, but then I would have to leave the order.

In the meantime, throughout the night visions would come to torment me: they would seem disturbingly real. But, tied to the tree, I’d be able to do nothing to defend myself. I was to survive the night of helplessness so that I had access to power.

I woke up before I got to see any tormenting visions, but in the dream I was sure they would involve people with whips.

Vasco Da Gama was a cruel, cruel man, according to author K.G. Jayne’s description of a 1524 expedition to Goa:

Before his flotilla put to sea, he had posted at the foot of the masts an order that any woman detected on board after the ships had passed Belem would be publicly flogged. If she were married, her husband would be sent home in irons ; if a slave, she would be sold and the proceeds given to charity ; while any captain wilfully conceahng such a stowaway would be cashiered.

The fleet arrived at Mozambique on the 14th of August, and halted for the flagship to repair a sprung yardarm. As it lay hove-to, three women stowaways were denounced to the Viceroy, and placed under arrest…

The three unfortunate women who had been detected in his ships were sentenced to be flogged through the streets while the town-crier intoned: “The Justice of the King our Lord ! It orders these women to be flogged because they had no fear of his justice, and crossed over to India despite his prohibition.”

Subsequent colonialists were rather keener for their overseas representatives to enjoy female company, it seems, according to another article:

It was much later that single virgin Dutch girls were dispatched to Cochin… Such ships bringing in Dutch virgins were called maiden ships. Eligible virgins were recruited from orphanages in Netherlands. They were then made available to higher ranked officials…

Punishments for misconduct were still strict, though, both aboard ship on the long voyage from Europe and from the girls’ new husbands. Or, at least, I assume they still adhered to at least some of da Gama’s principles, the article in question sadly neglecting to discuss the disciplinary arrangements.

Yesterday I was playing with the satellite maps on Google, and found that on the closest zoom not only can you see our house and garden pretty clearly, but also our cars parked out front, and a little blur that could be Abel standing by the car, talking to a neighbour.

This got me thinking. Our garden is not very private, so you couldn’t really spank anybody there, or frolic naked, or anything, but some people consider their gardens private hedged fortresses. If you had 5 metre tall trees all around your lawn, you wouldn’t have a problem sunbathing naked, would you, or maybe giving somebody a moderately quiet, but very stingy whipping with a freshly cut apple switch?

What you wouldn’t reckon on, is the Google satellite passing overhead, zooming in onto your wholesome spanking fun.

Oh, dear.

Mind you, I assume that Google somehow magics people out of the maps, because you usually don’t see any, but if the job isn’t automated, there could be some very amused programmers with a very fun collection of satellite images.

I woke early, as usual. Haron was still sound asleep, curled up next to me.

I couldn’t resist: who could? My hands wandered, reaching to rub her bottom. Sore, clearly, from last night’s whipping with the crop – she winced, murmured, wriggled away, shuffled back closer.

Inspired, I whispered into her ear. I’d been kind, I explained, to take her in the night before: I’d watched her flogging in the market place that morning, noticed her wandering from door to door during the day. I understood that her landlord would have thrown her out of her lodgings – and that no-one else in the town would take in a criminal who’d been publicly whipped.

But I was a kind gentleman. I’d seen her standing, disconsolate, in the market square as darkness fell, her few belongings in a small bag at her feet. I’d taken pity on her: brought her back to my house. And she couldn’t object now if I woke her by running my fingers over her weals…

In last night’s dream I was starting a new school. An interesting thing about this new school was that they didn’t sort you into forms by age, but had you progress through the forms as you achieved a certain level of knowledge. Every first day of term they would make an announcement of the form lists, and there was a lot of anticipation connected with this.

In my old school, I was supposed to start the 4th form, but in this new school I hoped I would be put in the 3rd. Because the 4th form was when they introduced corporal punishment.

I sat quietly in assembley, new people all around me, and listened to the Headmaster read out the lists. I was not in the 2nd form, but that was expected. Then the 3rd formers’ names were read out… I was not listed there, either. With a sinking heart, I realised that I was being put in the 4th, with its stricter discipline and its cane…

I woke up the other morning to find Cath, who was staying with us, standing next to the bed.

“Morning…” I mumbled, still half asleep.

“Morning! Sleep well?” she replied.

“Very weird dreams…”

“What about?”

“Car parks.”

I went on to explain. The girls from the boarding school had carried out a prank – taking all of the supermarket trolleys from the car park of the local Tesco to a Sainsbury’s a mile or so away, and leaving the Sainsbury’s trolleys lined up neatly outside Tesco. The staff of each company, arriving for work, were looking bemused…

“And did the girls get into trouble?” Cath asked, logically.

“I have no idea,” I replied sadly. “My dream moved straight onto multi-stories.” But in retrospect, I have no doubt that it would have been headmasterial canings all round. And, doubtless, for a considerable number of girls.

It was after dinner (lobster ravioli with eel and caviar foam – mmmm!) that I read up on the history of the rather splendid hotel in which I was staying in Utrecht. It seems that it was formerly the city’s court complex – a past that was sure to inspire my creative juices.

I imagined a young woman, freshly sentenced, being led up the stairs that I’d just climbed, and brought into the self-same room. Only in those days, it had been far from the luxurious designer affair in which I was staying: instead, it was bare save for a stout wooden table.

The guard who’d brought her from the courtroom would unlock her handcuffs. The punishment officer would command her to strip and bend over the end of the table, the guard taking up position to hold her firmly by the wrists as the flogging was inflicted – slowly, purposefully, harshly.

And what, pray, of that courtroom downstairs, in which she’d been sentenced? The judge would have paused before condemning her to her fate, and asked her guardian whether he had anything to say in mitigation. But he, the local mayor, would have spoken clearly and solemnly: “I’ve made it very plain that I’m not prepared to tolerate the declining standards of behaviour of our younger residents, your honour. I’ve called publicly for strict measures to be taken, without exception, and I stand by those pronouncements.”

I spent the early part of the week in Utrecht, and rather fell in love with the place. It’s everything that Amsterdam should be (and isn’t) – beautiful merchants’ houses lining quaint canals, yet quite unspoilt.

I went for a stroll before dinner, and imagined the histories behind the attractive water-side facades – a girl, freshly arrived from the country, standing before the stern mistress of the house in which she hoped to be a maid.

“You’ll understand that we expect you to work hard?” the lady would enquire.

“Yes, madam.”

“And that we expect the highest standards.”

“I shall try my hardest, madam.”

“And your hardest had better be up to scratch, young lady. I can tolerate a member of staff making a genuine mistake. Once. But if she repeats her error – or is wilfully at fault – then she must pay the consequences.”

“Yes, madam.”

The merchant’s wife would take out a cane, and flex it before the girl’s terrified eyes. “I find that I only have to bare a girl and chastise her once or twice before she learns to concentrate. Don’t make me have to teach you the hard way…”

And then her newest employee would be shown out of the room by the housekeeper, taken to a bath tub and scrubbed (in cold water, naturally) – and then presented with the formal, starched black dress in which she would serve…

Pondering ideas for dark scenes…

The maid had been caught for some dastardly misdemeanour. The master of the house demanded to see her; the butler brought her forth. Apologies were met with anger: “She must be whipped, of course,” the gentleman would observe.

But, he would decide, she should be given time to contemplate her crimes and her punishment. He was about to go on a trip: “”Take her to the cellar, lock her in, and feed her occasionally with bread and water. Make sure you’ve cut some birches by the time I return,” he’d tell the butler.

And then he’d turn to the girl, “Once I’m back, I’ll have you brought back in here, and I’ll give you the flogging you so soundly deserve, and afterwards we can decide whether or not you can continue in my employ.”

Needed: a girl who can spend a few days locked up; a local supply of birches; and a deep, cold, windowless cellar…

The cute lass who’d been wishing her boyfriend an emotional goodbye next to the airport security entrance on Sunday afternoon was in tears by the time I noticed her next, in the departure lounge. Good tears, I’m guessing – the sort that come from spending a weekend with someone lovely and having to part, knowing you’ll see them again soon. Sad, yes: but as a result of deep-down happiness.

Of course, had I not seen their embrace, I would have pictured an entirely different reason for her sobs. Her case had been brought the magistrates, back at home, some three months before. The cold verdict (“guilty”) – had come as a shock; the sentence – twenty strokes of the cane, to be administered at the local prison – had left her distraught.

They’d given her back her passport, after the lawyers had lodged an appeal. No reason to interrupt her education, they’d agreed – she could return to University whilst further legal arguments were held. And then, yesterday, the phone call she’d dreaded: verdict and sentence upheld, and “you must report to the authorities within 48 hours to receive your punishment.”

She’d fudged the explanations with her friends – a forgotten family birthday party the excuse for her sudden trip. And now she was here, trembling, waiting to board the flight that would take her to her thrashing…