THE SPANKING WRITERS

Our friend Martha is incorrigible. A group of kinky friends had dinner recently in Belgo, Covent Garden’s ever-enjoyable Belgian restaurant. One of the choices on the menu read:

Spit roasted Belgian chicken or duck

Martha amended hers with her biro, with an ever-so-unsubtle comma:

Spit roasted Belgian, chicken or duck

One hopes the maitre d’ caught her on CCTV, and has her escorted into a back room to be whipped on her next visit… (Interestingly, the staff all dress as monks. I’m picturing some dark cell, with the Abbot called in to hear her pleas for forgiveness and then administer the thrashing).

Dinner with Cath one evening last week was down by the quayside. We ate in a little fish restaurant – the sort of place where there’s no menu, only the waitress appearing to reel off the list of the three types of fish they had that evening.

She forgot to tell us about that morning’s incident, but we knew instinctively what had happened. The local girls had become quite a nuisance over the holidays, as they messed around on the fishing boats in the harbour – jumping from one to the other, hiding behind the nets, disappearing below deck. Only, none of the boats had ever set sail with one of the girls on board – until then.

The captain had found her, looking scared, when they were a half hour or so into their trip. He’d turned the boat straight around, of course, radioing back to the harbourmaster. It occurred to him as he unbuckled his belt that it was fortunate that the sea was calm enough for him to be able to land his strokes accurately as he whipped her on deck.

Her father – a local businessman – was waiting when they docked. No hugs: a curt “wait there” as he apologised to the fisherman and dug a selection of notes from his wallet to pay for the wasted time and fuel.

He pointed to a low, stone wall, ordering her to take down her jeans and knickers and bend over. He looked approvingly at the captain’s handiwork, then folded his own belt double to add his own strokes to the punishment, as the crowd looked on.

After they’d all been to so much trouble, I’m pleased to report that the sea bass was quite excellent.

I’ve rather grown to like Norwich* over the years, especially since a lovely boutique hotel opened there, thus making my occasional work visits so much more comfortable.

Now, I’ve never done anything kinky in said hotel – so why it should appear as the setting for an extremely rude dream last night is quite beyond me.

It started in the restaurant; I was dining with a young lady I’d not met before, but one who I knew from correspondence to be kinkily-inclined. Our conversation became more intense as the meal progressed; by dessert it was known that I could expect her absolute submission and obedience in whatever was to follow.

We ordered coffee; I ordered her to remove her knickers. At the dinner table. She blushed, hesitated, wriggled as far as she could go under the table, obeyed. She handed them to me; I wouldn’t take them. “Fold them neatly, and place them in front of you.”

“But the waiter will see.” He was returning, bearing our cappuccinos.

“Precisely.”

I made her leave them there when we left the table. “Please let me take them…”

I ignored her pleas.

Upstairs, we reached the door to my room. I looked at her carefully, checking she was OK: she looked back, and smiled a smile of nervous validation.

No sooner had I closed the door behind us than I forced her up against the wall, my hand enjoying the absence of underwear.

“Do you like that, young lady?”

“Yes, sir.”

I took my hand away, moved back. “Good. Then we shall continue. Once, that is, I’ve strapped you for your disobedience as we left the dinner table.”

“But I didn’t want to leave them there.”

The slap across her face wasn’t hard: it didn’t need to be. It confirmed the order of things, and when I told her to strip naked and bend over the end of the bed, her compliance was immediate.

There followed much naughtiness, over which I’ll draw a polite veil. But I am now rather looking forward to my next trip to that hotel.

* The city, that is, although the acronym is cool too!

Have you ever fancied yourself a noble young lady, captured and flogged by a dashing knight?

I know I have. But I’ve also had my doubts about the authenticity of these fantasies: true knights oughtn’t make war on high-born maidens; I wanted a knight, not a villain.

It appears, I can have my noble knight, and be punished by him too, with all due deference to the laws of chivalry.

From “War and Chivalry” by Matthew Strickland I learned that –

Conditions afforded to knightly captives taken for ransom may vary widely. Some captives were detained in honourable and open custody either in token of their rank or in recognition of their bravery at war…

Conversely, personal animosity towards captives might result in harsh conditions of confinement. E.g. in the war between Robert de Bellême and Henry I in 1105… one of Henry’s leading supporters Robert fitz Hamon… and others in his familia were “kept in close imprisonment for a long time, both to show their contempt and hatred of their lord.”

So, my dashing knight is actually at war with my father’s liege, and I get imprisoned along with everybody else in the family. It’s nothing out of the ordinary.

The law, it seems, is completely on my captor’s side:

…Jurists were arguing that since a prisoner was held essentially as a pledge for the price of his ransom, the captor might take reasonable measures to encourage payment.

Oh, dear. I can see the letter that’s winging its way to my father’s lord: “Pay the ransom, sir, if you do not wish to see this maiden suffer under the lash.”

Come to think of it, though, that’s still a little villainous. This sort of blackmail may be lawful, but my knight wouldn’t stoop to it. What if I provoked him, though, by taking advantage of his good nature?

Following his defeat at Lincoln in 1141, King Stephen was first kept under honourable custody at Bristol, but was later confined in irons because… of his prospensity to stray beyond his allotted bounds.

“My lady, were you not a maiden of tender years, I would see you confined in irons for this sort manner of conduct. As it is, I shall deal with you just as my father would deal with my sisters. Squire! Hand me the whip!”