THE SPANKING WRITERS

Smudge and I spent a lovely afternoon together recently, wandering from coffee shop to restaurant to tourist site to shops.

Amongst the latter was a branch of a make-your-own teddy bear store. For the uninitiated, like myself, this works as follows:

a) Choose bear.

b) Choose sound effect.

c) Hand to shop assistant for stuffing.

d) Select outfit for bear from extensive range.

e) Hand over credit card, and wince.

The interesting stage in this is (b), for one can record one’s own 10-second clip. So I’m wondering – does the sound gizmo have to go in the bear’s tummy? See, a bear dressed in school uniform, that yelps when its bottom is smacked, could be just the thing for kinky Christmas stockings this year.

Officers in the Austrian army at the start of last century had a curious trick when it came to wearing uniforms in hot weather:

 …At the races we were amused and puzzled to see officers appearing in flannels and carrying tennis rackets. I said to one, “Do tell me why you come to the races with a tennis racket when there is no chance of a game?”

His reply was, “Because it is much too hot to wear uniform.”

This astonishing answer led to the further explanation that officers may only discard their uniforms to play tennis. So… they carried tennis rackets as often as they could make a decent pretence of being about to play.

from ‘Indiscretions of Lady Susan” by S. Townlea

Quite aside from the military floggings that migh ensue if a commanding officer were to crack down on this practice, I enjoy thinking about schoolgirls borrowing this idea.

“But sir, we really are going to play tennis after cinema and ice-cream in town! Here are the rackets. Oh, please sir, not in the street!”

Passing the time on a flight on Monday, I had to tear two stories out of The Guardian.

First, their women’s soccer report noted that:

“Blackburn Rovers had four players sent off by the referee Lee Taylor in a sensational finale to yesterday’s Premier League Cup second-round defeat by Portsmouth”.

And then their news section reported that, in Kuwait:

“authorities abruptly terminated a concert by an Egyptian singer when a young female fan jumped on stage, hugged the male singer and have him a kiss…. The government department that monitors public entertainment said the girl’s behaviour at Friday’s concert ‘defied the conservative traditions of Kuwait’.”

Not a mention of spanking in either. The football team’s manager wouldn’t have lined up the miscreants in the dressing room, fresh from their early baths, for over the knee spankings, And the pop fan wouldn’t have slept on her front that night after suffering some more ‘conservative traditions’. So there’s nothing to see here. Move along in an orderly fashion, now…

Haron was whisked off on Sunday for a surprise birthday day-trip to Paris on the Eurostar.

We gawped at Notre Dame. We wandered round a museum – an old prison, full of kinky potential even if the French were wont to favour “off with their heads” over sound judicial birchings. We bought naughty antique postcards from the stalls on the banks of the Seine.

We argued over the glass pyramid in the Louvre courtyard; I’ll leave you to guess which of us was the more traditional, and hence outraged by its modernity. We strolled through the Tuileries, admiring the local scenery.

And we ate. Oh, what a lunch! A tiny, stumbled-upon-in-a-backstreet French brasserie; hearty provincial food, of the very highest order.

Our waitress was quite delightful, which inevitably led Haron and I to start whispering pervy thoughts to each other. She nearly knocked over our water: we imagined the proprietaire noting her misdemeanour on a sheet behind the counter, from which her errors would be tallied at the end of the week.

And then: a crash, and she sent a glass on the neighbouring table tumbling to the ground. There were some offences, we decided, that would not wait until the week was out. He’d beckon her into his tiny office, and take the strap from the wall. There’d scarcely be enough room to swing it, but his arm and aim would be practiced. She’d yelp, and cry, and apologise, and be hugged, and appear to serve our dessert with tears still in her eyes.

(Actually, she just got out a dustpan and brush and cheerfully cleared up the mess. Quite disappointing, really!)

Abel left me in our hotel room to go to a work appointment. I stuck my head out of the window to watch him leave, and noticed that the hotel ballroom, directly underneath me, was being prepared for some kind of event: a red carpet unrolled, a couple of TV vans parked outside, barriers set up to keep the onlookers from spilling onto the reserved area.

I wondered if this would be how a town square would be prepared for a public flogging.

I didn’t foresee a red carpet for that occassion, of course, but there would be a temporary explosion of activity around the normally lonely whipping post.

A barrier would certainly be erected, leading all the way from the door of the jail opposite. The TV vans would be here early, trying to glimpse the arrival of the executioner for work, still in his street clothes and looking safe and normal.

And, I think, there would be a small contingent of long-time fans, the type of folks who make it their business to be present at every flogging, no matter how rare. They would bicker politely over the best spots in that sliver of space where not only can you see the lash land onto the exposed buttocks and back, but where you can catch a glimpse of the agony on the convict’s face.

The convict – me, of course – would be watching all this from a tiny barred window in the jail cell. There would be a clock on the wall, too, counting down the minutes until it’s time to make that walk along the path between the barriers, under the glare of TV lights. Towards the whipping post. Towards the executioner, no longer casual-looking in his sleeveless shirt with sweatbands and biceps exposed.

Towards the lash.

The impatient message over the loudspeakers cut through the quiet air in the bookstore:

Eva, call 251. Eva, please call 251.

But Eva was a naughty girl, for a few minutes later, the voice shrilled again, half weary, half annoyed:

Could Eva *please* call extension 251. Thank you.

She must have responded to this second call, for we were spared the third announcement:

Eva! Report immediately to the manager’s office.

She hadn’t called because she’d been afraid of the scolding that would inevitably follow. Not to have done so had made matters much, much worse. Downcast, she took the escalator up from the non-fiction section; went through the door marked ‘Private’. Knocked, and was called in.

“And why didn’t you call when you were asked to, young lady?”

“Because. Because… I’m sorry, sir.”

The manager would make an example of her: the tannoy would be flicked back on before her punishment commenced. The sharp retort of the strap would echo six times across the building. Other assistants would wince at their friend’s squeals, some remembering their own toe-touching moments. And the shoppers would look up from their browsing and realise quite how much effort went into maintaining the store’s impeccable reputation for quality.