Samantha first noticed the girl on account of her old-fashioned dress. She was walking across the courtyard towards the house right through the others without deigning to notice them. She had a forbidding air about her, which on some level at least Samantha’s cousins must have respected, for they made no move to hurl a snowball in the girl’s direction.
The girl had red hair, all piled on top of her head and under her aloof expression she looked rather sad.
I wonder who she is, Samantha pondered, making a note to herself to ask Aunt Mary. The trouble was there were so many cousins from both sides of the family that Samantha hardly knew any of them. Judging from their behaviour, she really didn’t care to.
Her mother said she would have fun at Aunt Mary’s house. She said there would be young people her own age, even some boys who weren’t cousins. True enough she was right, but the older boys had mostly secreted themselves above the garage to pass around joints with some of the more wayward older girls; and worse, Samantha shouldn’t wonder.
The others had mostly joined in with the younger kids in one great snowball fight in the courtyard, leaving only Samantha and this girl to fend for themselves.
Samantha watched the girl become ever more aloof as she disappeared into the old kitchen block.
The house had a lot of tumbled down areas that hadn’t been used since the house had had servants. That had been back in Great Grandfather’s day when Aunt Mary, the current custodian of the house, had been a child.
I bet she isn’t a cousin at all, Samantha thought once the girl had gone. I bet she is one of the girls from the village invited by Mary’s son Ian in the hopes of joining the orgy, or whatever they called it above the garage. Samantha was glad to see that the girl had more sense than have anything to do with them.
It got her wondering how many other people had come for Christmas that she didn’t know. I bet the girl knows some of them, Samantha thought excitedly. Then she grinned.
Dropping out of the window seat in the bay above the courtyard she broke into a run down the long gallery to the back stairs. The girl must come up them, unless that is she was going into the old kitchen wing in the disused part of the house, but why go there?
Samantha didn’t stop running until she reached the stairs. She was grinning all the way, her mother wouldn’t have approved.
“Don’t be so childish,” she would have said, “No wonder you can’t find…” a man, a job, a flat… her mother’s stock phrase for blaming everything that Samantha didn’t have.
Well at least she wasn’t having a snowball fight in the yard or smoking dope and snogging boys above the garage.
Suddenly Samantha realised that she had taken a wrong turn. She didn’t recognise this part of the house and anyway there was no sign of the girl. Then she heard a door close just above her.
Got you, she thought triumphantly. Doubling back she got to what must have been the closing door seconds too late.
The passage beyond was not as Samantha expected. The walls were hung with tasteful gold and red wallpaper and there were some old pictures of hunting scenes, which looked like the Penfold’s that Samantha had thought had long since been sold off.
Wicked old Aunt Mary, holding out us are you, Samantha grinned. She thought briefly about looking into some of the rooms she was passing for other treasures but she heard her quarry up ahead so she hurried on.
Just as she got to the turn in the passage she saw the girl at big door at the end. But before she could speak it opened and she was admitted to the room.
“I think you have found where the cool kids are hanging out,” Samantha sang under her breath in a happy voice.
Samantha took a deep breath and then ambled along the hall trying to compose herself. With any luck she would know some of the cousins inside and she wouldn’t be turned away.
She was about to tap on the door, her head swimming with thoughts of secret knocks, when she heard a man’s voice from within. He sounded like a grown-up and not at all like one of the cousins. The door was too thick to hear what he said, but the tone of the conversation was serious.
Samantha was thrown now. She had hoped to find her kind of party, but now she was probably intruding. Disappointed, she was about to leave when a sound seized her attention.
It sounded like a clap followed by another, but it was too slow for applause and too loud. Then Samantha blushed. The splat that followed sounded like the impact of something on to naked flesh and she knew what she was hearing.
“Oh God, it can’t be,” Samantha gasped. But she couldn’t tear herself away.
The spanking was loud and crisp and went on for some time before the girl began to cry out.
Occasionally the man would growl a little as if he were scolding her, but the main sound was that of the spanking and that went on for quite some time.
Then it occurred to Samantha that she could ‘accidentally’ go in, as if by mistake sort of thing. It was a thought that once entertained wouldn’t let go.
The spanking was proceeding with some vigour now and if she didn’t act quickly she would miss it.
Finally she took hold of the door handle and swept it open.
The girl she could see was around her own age. Her skirts were turned up and around her ankles were cream cotton knickers. The girl had tears pooled in her eyes and her face was nearly as red as her revealed bottom, which was angled over the man’s knee.
The man was older than Samantha expected; an uncle or a father figure rather than a lover. He was at least 40 with thick greying hair and big sideburns.
Both were looking at her now, the girl with a horrified expression and the man rather amused.
“Can’t you see we are busy?” The girl said haughtily as if striving for some dignity. “Please go away.”
“No I think she should stay and watch. After all she will be next and it will be far more instructive for you,” the man chuckled.
“Ooh you beast,” the girl wailed.
Samantha was transfixed. Surely he was joking but in any case, she would save her refusals for after; just then she only wanted to see.
The man resumed the spanking, turning an already very red bottom to an even more vivid shade and very soon the girl had more things to worry about than an audience, for despite her best efforts she began to cry.
“Now young lady, you can go to the corner,” the man said sternly.
Samantha felt a sense of disappointment, although she was glad to see that the girl did not cover herself and went to face the corner with her skirts still turned up and her knickers around her ankles. This left her sore bare bottom very well displayed.
“Your turn,” the man barked at Samantha.
“But I…” she didn’t say too old, not after what she had seen, instead continued, “I haven’t done anything.”
“You, young lady are a peeping tom aren’t you?” he growled.
Samantha blushed, but despite herself she nodded.
“You won’t tell will you?” she whispered. The thought of being teased by 30-odd cousins was too much to bear.
“No bargains, just come here,” the man snapped.
Samantha glanced at the girl in the corner and then took half a step forward. It was enough and in a moment she was across the man’s knee with her own skirts rolled up and her knickers at her shins.
Jacked-knifed over his lap she had never felt so vulnerable and she was about to protest that the door was still ajar, but then he spanked her.
“Yah,” she yelped, kicking her legs and bobbing her head in unison.
The fiery handprint on her bottom stung worse than she thought. Then he spanked her again.
“No, I don’t want to,” she wailed.
“Be quiet, you deserve this,” he scolded her.
Samantha crossed her ankles as he applied a volley of spanks to her bare bottom until she began to bawl like a lost kitten.
“Please I’m sorry,” she wailed, but he ignored her and went on spanking her until Samantha lost all track of time.
“Now go and stand next to Charlotte and don’t you dare move. I want to see that polished red behind of yours,” the man ordered her.
Samantha felt until shamed now, but it felt so good to cry that she indulged herself to the maximum.
“That’s it, let it out,” the man soothed, “Two Christmas cherry bums contrite and glowing in the corner.”
“Yes Sir,” the girl said.
“Ooh, I’m so sorry,” Samantha sobbed, and she was, but had no idea why.
*
At some point Samantha had drifted off and some considerable time had passed. The warm room had become chilly and she was dimly aware that she and Charlotte, if that was her name, had been dismissed and that man had gone.
By the time the dazed Samantha had pulled her knickers up the girl had also gone, not that Samantha wanted to chat just then. Later she would have a quiet word and learn more about the curious events.
It had got dark and the passage way outside the room was dark, but Samantha found the door to the stairs and heard the ubiquitous cousins before she had a chance to locate the light switch so she didn’t bother.
“Samantha, there you are. Where have you been? We are having charades in the drawing room,” Sarah one of her more palatable cousins called out.
Samantha grimaced and gave her bottom a surreptitious rub under her skit and then politely nodded.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” she called back.
Then satisfied that she would be left alone again she went off to see Aunt Mary.
She found her as always in the kitchen preparing yet more food.
“Auntie,” she said as casually as she could.
“Mm yes dear,” Mary said without looking up.
“Um, how many cousins are there here?”
“Oh I don’t know… thirty, thirty three maybe if we have everyone,” Mary replied, still placing her attention on the sausage rolls, “No, let me think…”
“Who is Charlotte?” Samantha interrupted; Mary’s thought processes could take a while otherwise.
“Charlotte? I don’t think we have a Charlotte,” Mary said, now she was looking up.
“A redheaded girl about my age,” Samantha prompted.
Mary frowned.
“No I don’t think so,” she said, “Redheaded you say? I had a Great Aunt Charlotte. She was a redhead. Lived here oh… until she married. Matter of fact she lived here with her husband for a time when I was about your age. She only died a few years back… oh sorry. I am rambling on. Charlotte you say? Could be someone from the village. Ian invited some people.”
“Oh yes, that will be it,” Samantha said thoughtfully.
Then as she went to go Mary said, “There is a picture of Charlotte in the hall with her husband; a strange chap I remember.”
Mary’s face took on an odd expression as she spoke.
“A very odd chap, when I was your age he used to… oh well never mind,” Mary said, suddenly becoming tight-lipped.
Matching her mood, Samantha nodded and beat a retreat.
Out in the hall one wall was covered with pictures of family, alive and dead; some going back generations. Under 18th century portraits of bewigged squires sat dour Victorians and stiff-necked Edwardians. Nearer in time were Noel Coward-esque stylish young men and women from the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
There are among them, aloof and removed in time by at least half a century was Charlotte and the man who had spanked them both as clean and fresh as Samantha had seen them; attired in much the same clothes.
The End
