Even after being allowed to get dressed Chloe’s world was defined by her bottom. Every step made her behind flare up as if someone was giving her another spanking.
“God I can still feel it,” she gasped, a fresh tear escaping her eye.
“That will be the nettles,” Adrian said authoritatively.
Chloe nodded, not entirely sure she wanted to think about it, let alone discuss it.
“If that was only the second part of my initiation, then I dread to think what the encore will be like,” Chloe forced a smile.
“Do you want to leave?” Adrian made the question sound casual, but there was a tension around his eyes that seemed to fill the seconds following his words.
Chloe hadn’t even considered that, not for a moment. The fact that he had even asked that made her think he doubted her.
“Do you think I should?” Chloe gaped.
Adrian swallowed and looked away and Chloe could see his jaw tighten.
“It isn’t a question for me, but if you did want to leave, to consider I mean then… well you could come back,” Adrian said hopefully.
Chloe frowned. “I…”
Did she want to think about it? That sounded fatal.
“No,” Chloe was decisive, “I am just not used to it… only…”
“Look what happened was hard going but… well it really could have been worse. In all honesty, Wendy and Alice cut you some slack. They are good at reading people that way. Had Kirsty been up front about what she did then it would have been entirely within the rules and unless you bailed, you might well have intimate knowledge of her now. She might have…”
Adrian wasn’t sure how far Chloe’s innocence extended and fell silent.
“You would have liked that wouldn’t you?” Chloe let a smile do a veiled dance around her lips.
“Yes,” Adrian said bluntly and rounded on her to fix her with his eyes.
“There will be a lot of that sort of thing I suppose? Once I am a member I mean,” Chloe said ruefully.
“Not if it is not your thing,” Adrian said seriously. “I mean, you would have to be pretty confident for people not to try all sorts on with you. Consent sometimes gets a little circumstantial around here. But I would… protect you.”
There he had said it. He felt like a school boy and looked away.
Up to now, Chloe had been lost in an awe-struck crush on this man. He had seemed like a god to her. Now she could see he was all that and more. She could scarcely draw a breath as she looked at him for the first time.
“I am not made of glass,” Chloe whispered. “I love it here. I love… I mean I thought the whole point was that my thing, as you put it, was whatever you said it was?”
“It is generally more complicated than that,” he said, but he was nodding.
An awkward silence fell between them. Then perhaps the wind changed.
“Come on, I want to see what they are doing to Kirsty and Helen,” Chloe said eagerly.
She wasn’t ready to break the spell just yet.
“It will be pretty rough, aren’t you afraid that it could happen to you?” His tone was mocking; mocking with a hint of threat.
“It is that danger that makes it so exciting,” she said insightfully and walked on as quickly as the throb in her bottom would allow.
*
Dinner was held in the same room as lunch. Except this time there were more people and a party atmosphere prevailed. From the hall outside Chloe could see many more servers and from looks of the girls who passed her in the hall bearing trays, they were now wearing far skimpier outfits. Chloe was strangely thrilled to see a flash of bare bottom as one girl passed her in an impossibly short skirt. She thought of the tennis court and blushed.
With no immediate threat to her bottom, Chloe’s nerves had abated and she was ravenous. Even the insistent rasping throb in her behind was no deterrent to her enthusiasm; indeed it added some spice to the occasion.
“Are there any rules I should know about?” She said in a hurried whisper to Adrian who had taken her arm.
“Not really, this evening you are a guest,” Adrian grinned, but added, “Oh, you may ask for a pillow if you can’t sit down, but don’t be seen kneeling and for heaven’s sake don’t stand up to eat at the table.”
“What if I can’t manage it?” Chloe asked, but for some reason the threat of some unnamed punishment was more thrilling that scary.
“A place will be set for you on the mantelpiece at the end of the room,” Adrian grinned.
Chloe blushed and grinned back.
“It is of course only polite to hold up your dress behind to show why you can’t join the grown-ups,” Adrian continued.
Chloe remembered the way in which Claire had tucked her leg under to subtlety lift her bottom off the seat in the car and said, “’I’ll manage.”
As they entered the dining room Chloe could see that Adrian hadn’t been joking. At the back of the room stood three or four women with one hand behind their backs holding an assortment of evening wear up off their bared bottoms to reveal some quite spectacular colouring and even bruises.
Two of the women were chatting casually together seemingly oblivious to the spectacle they were making, but a third had a face that was as red as her bottom and she was glowering angrily at someone sitting at the table Chloe couldn’t see.
There might have been other girls like those but the mantelpiece was obscured by the milling dinners that had yet to find their places.
Then she saw Kirsty and Helen and gasped.
They were both looking very sorry for themselves and both completely naked. But that was not all. They had both been set kneeling on a buffet table that had been out of sight of the door to the left under the great windows. It looked as if their elbows had been secured to their knees so that their heads were down and their bottoms sticking up.
Like bookends they faced each other with their bottoms facing outwards so that everyone could see the pièce de résistance. Namely, inserted between their upturned cheeks were two great red candles, both of which had been lit.
To add to their humiliation, both their bottoms had been spanked to a colour that would rival Chloe’s rash-razed behind.
“Oh my God,” she gasped.
“It is just the start of their fun for the evening,” Adrian whispered, “John and Wendy have invited us to a private party later.”
He winked at her and she felt her knees turn decidedly jelly-like.
*
Chloe pressed the rim of her cognac glass to her lower lip and rolled it back and forth. She had taken a position at the back of the room next to Wendy, her buttocks clenched in a parody of sympathy.
The two women, still naked from dinner, were kneeling side by side with their bottoms presented towards the door while John and Adam stood nearby deep in conspiratorial whispers as they contemplated them.
“I think a nice long slow caning would be the ticket,” John said sternly. “What do you think Adrian?”
Both John and Adam turned to Adrian who stood back to one side, for once taking a role as a spectator.
Chloe too glanced at her sponsor and held her breath. She found herself hoping that he would counsel cruelly.
“I sponsored Kirsty and she may well have been motivated by jealousy with regard to Chloe here,” he suggested, “But it is no excuse. Not that any real harm was done.”
Chloe agreed, but said nothing. In fact now that she thought about it, Kirsty’s intervention had probably saved her from future accusations that her initiation had been too easy. Not that she would breathe a sigh in defence of her tormentor. Her bottom was still tanging too much for that. On reflection, she would consult Wendy and Alice about the proper use of nettles the first chance she got for some retaliation.
“As for Helen,” Adrian continued, “Well she is your province, but she made a grave error of judgement.”
“Yes she did,” Adam said uncomfortably, “John, Wendy, I am so sorry.”
“So am I,” Helen squeaked from the bed, her voice slightly muffled by the bedclothes.
“Think nothing of it,” John reassured him, “We are among friends.”
“Hardly the point dear,” Wendy put in.
“No, absolutely not,” John growled in irritation, as much at his wife as anything. “Do you hear me young lady?” he added addressing Helen.
“Yes Sir,” Helen replied in a girlish voice.
“I gave them both a proper spanking before dinner and Helen has been in the pillory at the gate since lunch time,” Wendy said tentatively.
Chloe wondered if she was being kind again, but Wendy continued, “But can I suggest…”
“You are not telling us our business, are you woman?” John scowled at his wife.
“No, no not at all but… well I was wondering if some additional preparation might make the lesson take?” Wendy sucked in her cheeks and tried to appear humble before the men in full dominant indignation.
“Two enemas a piece before that trick with the candle was very thoughtful of you,” John said somewhat mollified.
“Yes but… if I may… maybe…”
As Wendy outlined her idea, Chloe did not know whose eyes were wider, hers of the two hapless miscreants kneeling bottom up on the bed.
“Oh please Sir, Adam, don’t please,” Helen wailed.
“Don’t be a baby,” the cockney girl said ruefully, “We are busted.”
“You know you have it coming don’t you Kirsty,” Adrian chuckled.
“You can’t blame a girl for trying, I wasn’t jealous, honest, but I guess I do have it coming,” Kirsty’s voice sounded strained.
“Don’t say that,” Helen gasped, “They don’t have to, I’ll be good.”
“You are way too green at this, you can kiss your sitting privileges goodbye baby,” Kirsty snorted.
*
Chloe chewed her lip as she watched Wendy mix the concoction she had prepared with the heavy clear oil. It wasn’t only the mixture that disconcerted her, but also the presence on the tray beside the bowl was an egg whisk and several pieces of glass paper.
Then while Wendy smeared the mixture generously over Christy and Helen’s proffered bare bottoms, taking care to put in some kitchen gloves before she did so, John began to expertly wrap the whisk heads with the paper.
“What is that?” Helen asked nervously.
Having gone first Kirsty was already gritting her teeth at this point and making strange gurgling noises.
“Oh it has quite a few ingredients, mustard, cayenne, tobacco… oh and among other things, a dash of blender-creamed nettle stalks,” Wendy listed in an innocent tone.
“And Chloe knows what that feels like don’t you Chloe,” Kirsty gasped, really struggling to keep her breath even now.
“Now let’s see,” Wendy said easily picking up the prepared egg whisk. “When I was first brought here the girls treated me to an electric sander. I couldn’t sit down for… oh a long, long time. I cried for days and John only had to hint at a spanking on top of my cherry sore behind and I would be as meek as you like.”
As she spoke she began to massage Helen’s right bottom cheek with the improvised contraption until the girl was rocking her bottom back and forth and making the most curious sounds.
“Now do I have to fetch a sander or are you two going to be good girls?” Wendy teased.
“I’ll be good, I’ll be good,” Helen wailed, tears springing to her eyes faster than any Chloe had yet seen.
“I wonder if I should have put more nettle in it,” Wendy smirked, taking a side glance at Chloe.
“These ladies should take a caning nicely,” John said as he slashed the cane through the air a couple of times.
The hardier Kirsty scowled angrily over her shoulder at her tormentor, although it seemed to Chloe that she pressed her bottom back to meet the onslaught of Wendy’s whisk.
“You can thank your lucky stars that we have a stranger in our midst,” John said sternly.
Chloe bristled at this. She was getting tired of being an outsider. Besides she was now even more curious about how far this could go.
“They’ll be okay won’t they?” she whispered to Adrian.
“Oh you wouldn’t believe what Kirsty can handle and Helen is just accident prone. By design I suspect,” he reassured her. “Don’t worry. It will be a while before I let things get this rough with you.”
Chloe took a deep breath and considered something. Then she said, “I have one more… one more submission if you like to make before I… what? Become one of the family so to speak?”
Adrian cocked an eyebrow, but he nodded.
“Who will do it? I mean, what will it consist of; something worse than this?” Chloe chewed her lip and waited on the answer.
“I could put you across my knee now and it would be sufficient. It is up to me. Why?” Adrian’s eyes narrowed as if he had guessed something but dare not… hope? Fear?
“Do it now,” Chloe said in a determined voice, “With them.”
“Have you seen your… I saw you not quite sitting at dinner. Just relax and I’ll get to you in a day or two. It needn’t be bad. We have all the time in the world to explore each other,” Adrian seized Chloe by the shoulders and drilled her with his eyes.
“I love you,” Chloe breathed. “I want you now. I want it all. I’ll do anything you want. Please let me…”
She had gone too far she knew. She was too eager and was usurping his place to decide her fate.
“In a few days I was planning a picnic. Just you, me and a nice big hairbrush,” Adrian said archly. “If I agree to this, you will still get what’s coming and a lot more.”
Chloe nodded.
“So be it,” Adrian sighed. “John, is there room for a small one?”
John who had been listening just tapped the bed with the tip of his cane.
“I think there is enough paste for three,” Wendy said, menacingly working the whisk in the air.
Adrian nodded even as Chloe gulped, but she didn’t hesitate. If she had not counted on that being added to her ordeal, she didn’t show it.
“And Chloe,” Adrian whispered as he squeezed her hand as she let her dress fall to the floor, “I loved you from that very first minute.”
Chloe nodded and then steeled herself.
*
The whisk felt… intimate. Wendy left no crevice unpolished until Chloe wondered if she was missing something. Her two companions were already crying freely, like naughty school girls caught up to no good in the dorm. If her bottom hadn’t already been so tender, she doubted that such ministrations would have discomforted her at all.
Then what had started as a rasping tingle began to burn a little and then sting. The skin on Chloe’s bottom became tight and she had never been so aware of that part of herself all at once before. The localised grazed-knee-type burn suddenly encompassed her whole bottom right in deep and she gasped.
“This is…” she hissed, then a cartoon image of eyes on stalks struck her down; her now watery eyes. “Guh!”
The unbearable throbbing she had suffered at Kirsty’s hands was rekindled and she clawed at the bed sheets, kneading the bunched duvet in a kind of proxy for her assailed behind.
“I have heard that a watered down version of this paste can be used for enemas,” Wendy said conversationally. Then in a low whisper that only Chloe heard she said, “Is that what you wanted, silly girl?”
“Yes I have heard of that,” John said knowingly, “It is known as an Edward the Second.”
“Judging from their faces, I think some of your little potion may already have been making inroads in that direction,” Adam commented.
“Milk balm and yoghurt enemas all round when we are done,” Adrian said thoughtfully.
“After a nice long spell in the corner to think it over surely,” John said sternly.
“As you say,” Adrian agreed. “How are we going to work this?”
“Each gets six apiece from each of us,” John suggested.
“I can’t speak for Kirsty or Chloe but Helen needs double that, don’t you dear?” Adam said sharply.
“Esss, darlinguh,” Helen groaned.
“Share and share alike I say,” Adrian put in. “Is that alright with you ladies?”
“Yes Sir,” Kirsty managed to say in a gasp that came close to a shriek.
Chloe could only nod vigorously as she prayed that they would get on with it. I must be mad she thought. But it wasn’t only her bottom that throbbed as she became acutely aware of the wetness at both ends. Bravado and a need to belong had led her to the edge now she wanted Adrian to lead her far beyond it.
“Chloe?” Adrian prompted.
“Yezzzir,” Chloe replied through clenched teeth.
“I can’t believe how red they are,” the less experienced Adam murmured.
“Pretty as roses, aren’t they?” Wendy cooed.
Adam nodded dumbly.
“We could always leave them to stew a little,” Wendy continued, “I was always so amenable after, do you remember darling?”
“Oh God, please no, please, please, please Wendy,” Helen whined.
“Out of my hands I am afraid,” Wendy said with a smirk.
“Yes, be quiet then,” John scolded her.
Chloe had no idea who wielded the cane first. Indeed for a moment she had no idea what the whistle-crack sound was. She only knew that it found Kirsty’s bottom first.
“Sheesh mah-mah,” it sounded like she said, but it was hard to tell.
Chloe welcomed the distraction of the countdown of the strokes. She only regretted missing the party as a spectator, maybe it would have been more fun. The bed shook violently as Kirsty shouted out and tried to hold position for the last stroke.
Me or…? Chloe thought, then the startling whoosh ended in a shriek from Helen.
“Spank me please, spank me every day for a month,” Helen sobbed.
Chloe presumed she meant instead of this but Adam said, “Oh I will darling,” and made no move to intervene. From the position of his voice, Chloe guessed that Adam was in the wrong place to be the caner and concluded that John had started them off.
Helen did not take her first six very well, so Chloe was surprised at the heart felt gratitude she expressed to John when it was over.
“I am so sorry John, thank you,” she gushed through her tears. Appropriate Chloe thought.
“Adam, I’m sorry,” Helen continued.
However, Chloe did not have time to consider for it was her turn.
“First time?” John asked in a deep voice.
He tapped her exposed bottom with the tip of the cane as he spoke. Even at this small contact with her tortured flesh she gasped.
“Yes Sir,” Chloe replied, her mouth thick and the words catching in her throat.
“Then this will be educational,” John said pointedly.
“Yes Sir, thank you Sir,” Chloe acknowledged. It felt good to submit her will so utterly.
“What a polite girl,” John intoned.
The cane struck unheard by Chloe and for a moment of endless time she could not process its touch. Then the hard line of pain blossomed and sharpened; Chloe wanted to surrender to the scream. Instead she blew something like a raspberry through a clenched jaw as the sting continued to grow.
“Try to relax,” John ordered her.
“Yes Sir,” she replied, the words now wet and dripping from her face.
The first stroke’s work was not yet complete before John caned her again.
“Oh,” she wailed, her face a grimace of pain and then she repeated a more emphatic, “Oh.”
“Feeling it I suppose,” John said casually.
“Yes Sir,” Chloe moaned, but her tears were in free-fall now.
Pain could be addictive Chloe realised and despite her outward distress, she anticipated the next few strokes. Her bottom fizzed all over with a pervasive soreness, layered with an aching throb of the first strokes. On top of this tapestry she received bite of yet more. The heartfelt scream that announced the last of her six was a release.
“Do you need any water?” Wendy asked incongruously and massaged Chloe’s shoulder while she wept.
“She’ll be fine,” John growled.
“Chloe?” Wendy persisted.
“No Ma’am, thank you,” Chloe breathed at last.
“Good girl,” Adrian said brightly, understanding the exchange.
Adam next took a turn with the cane; a fact that Helen appreciated with gusto.
“I’m sorry Adam, I’m sorry,” she sobbed throughout their bitter exchange.
Chloe felt strangely soothed by her vocal accompaniment to the aching soreness in her own bottom.
Then as expected Kirsty was different animal and was only now finding her second wind.
“Thank you Sir,” she grunted at the first of his strokes.
“Welcome,” Adam replied with a hint of irritation.
“So kind,” Kirsty gasped at her second stroke.
“Uh-huh,” Adam responded to her bravado.
Adam laid the third stroke across her graze-red bottom about as hard as he could and Kirsty groaned. There was no further comment from her for several moments, although she panted like marathon runner and clawed at the duvet on the bed.
“You’re getting good at this,” Kirsty finally managed to say in a somewhat tight voice.
“More swing, less force,” John muttered.
The forth stroke sounded louder to Chloe’s ears and she jerked in surprise and sympathy. I can cope with this, she thought as he bottom pain simmered down a little. Not for the first time she regretted not being able to see the action.
Meanwhile Kirsty spluttered back some choking sounds as her bravado cracked a little. A short age passed before she croaked, “That’s cheating.”
“Would you like an extra stroke?” Adam asked her.
The pause was brief. “No Sir,” Kirsty said hastily.
There was no sound but breathing for a long while after that, as unknown to Chloe Adam limbered up with some shoulder shakes, returning now and again to tap and tease Kirsty’s impressive bottom.
The fifth stroke came suddenly and Kirsty yelped, “Oh Christ,” and her breathing became ragged.
“No cheeky come back?” Adam asked.
Chloe felt Kirsty shake her head next to her.
The final stroke was clear and crisp and Kirsty made a whining sound that continued for a long moment. Then finally she broke to open childish sobbing.
There was a ripple of applause for both Kirsty and Adam.
*
Determined that Chloe would not offer the kind of resistance he had had from Kirsty, Adam had demanded that Chloe count her second six from him. It had been an efficient no nonsense set and Chloe had cried freely throughout.
“Six, thank you Sir,” she sobbed as she took the final stroke from him.
All three girls were crying now and from behind their bottoms made an impressive sight.
“What do you say to a short break?” John suggested.
“Good idea,” Adrian agreed, “Girls, stand up and have a little rub.”
The veteran Kirsty knelt up at once and clamped her hands to her behind.
“You guys are the business,” she said cheerfully, although her eyes were still wet.
Helen dropped flat onto the bed and tentatively dabbed at her bottom with her fingers as she continued to sob.
Chloe would have done the same, but Adrian had said to stand up so she unsteadily gained her feet before doing an impromptu dance with both hands kneading at her aching rounds.
“How are you coping?” Wendy asked conversationally.
Chloe frowned; it had been such a strange couple of days.
“It’s… it’s both harder and easier than I thought,” she replied.
Wendy nodded and looked skyward, “I know what you mean.”
“Your husband is a demon,” Chloe winced, her hands still massaging her behind.
“Tell me about it,” Wendy said in an exasperated voice. “I have had 20 years of it.”
“Any regrets?” Chloe blurted.
“None,” Wendy winked.
Chloe smiled back.
“Alright girls, get back in position,” Adrian ordered.
Chloe pulled a face and risked a glance over to her sponsor who was testing a new cane.
Helen looked like she would cry again, but Kirsty only shrugged and crawled into the most obscenely submissive posture she could manage. More bravado, Chloe wondered and then steeling herself, she copied suit.
“Helen, I want you to show willing,” Adrian warned.
Helen responded by shifting on the bed and pressing her knees closer to her elbows.
“A little more,” Adrian snapped.
The bed shook again until all three bottoms were uppermost in a perfect row and addressing the ceiling.
“You will each get six more apiece from me and then once you are dismissed you will thank the gentlemen in the room and then go and face the wall,” Adrian explained. “I won’t tell you this twice, so don’t forget.”
“Yes Sir,” Chloe and Kirsty said at once, while Helen squeaked, “No Sir… I mean, eh… yes Sir.”
Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, Chloe thought in amusement.
“Ow… oh Sir,” Helen squealed. The bed shook as she followed up with a healthy, “Yah.”
Watson, the game is afoot, Chloe thought idly.
*
There was no rebellion in Kirsty’s eyes as she turned for sideways look at Chloe just inches now from her face. The girl was crying copiously and had utterly surrendered to her caning at Adrian’s hands.
“Sorry,” she mouthed, but Chloe wasn’t sure why she said it. The incident at the pillory had been a thousand years ago and was now all but forgotten.
Chloe took comfort in Kirsty’s proximity and she could feel the other woman’s thighs pressing into hers. She could even feel the side heat from Kirsty’s bottom that had been generated by her caning.
I wonder how he doesn’t miss and catch me instead, Chloe thought. It was as good a way as any to cope with what was about to befall her. The truth was, she wanted to put on a good show for Adrian. She even shamelessly parted her thighs a little to demonstrate her arousal.
“Are you ready?” he whispered in her ear.
“I’m yours,” she sighed.
“As anyone can see,” Kirsty muttered in Chloe’s ear.
Chloe poked her tongue at her.
The stroke took Chloe’s breath away as none other that evening had. Her head jerked and she fancied she could feel it behind the eyes as she baulked. He was a master; the thought ran wild through her mind. She was glad.
“Oh Sir,” she yelled as he caned her again. She made no attempt to restrain her tears this time. It was her gift to him.
“Sir,” she shrieked as he caned in hard again, piling biting sting upon the searing ache of the first stroke.
“Sir,” she sobbed just moments later as he mastered her.
There were no words for the fifth stroke and she just spluttered sobs into the pillow.
The dread sixth stroke to a life time to arrive and she felt its loss even as she bawled at its impact. Even so, she didn’t think she could go through that again.
The three women were allowed to totter over to face the wall to have a good cry.
“That’s it,” John said encouragingly. Let it all out, just one more set from each of us and it’s all over.”
Chloe half turned her head and gaped.
“Had you forgotten?” Kirsty actually smiled.
Chloe nodded.
“Poor you,” Kirsty squeezed her arm.
“Poor me, our poor, poor bottoms,” Chloe sighed, biting her lower lip, but already she thrilled somewhere inside.
I am definitely crazy, she thought, and shook her tail of some of the sting.
So the long evening continued.
*
The steep side of the hill fort fell away from them and into the valley where mixed woodland quickly gave way to a patchwork of green and yellow fields that extended way off to where the Wessex North Downs began in the distance.
From where the girls lay in the grass it wasn’t possible to see Parkway, but they all knew it was there beyond the trees awaiting their return. Above them a red kite circled looking for its prey, perhaps competing with the kestrel that hovered yards from them not 10 feet off the ground.
“More ice anyone,” Alice asked as she reached into the picnic basket.
“Ooh, please,” Helen groaned and extended a hand.
There were already two bags nestling on her hindquarters and Chloe idly wondered if Helen’s chaffed bottom was in any danger of frost bite.
“Me too,” Kirsty sighed from her prone face-down position on a blanket. Her eyes were still firmly shut.
“How about you?” Alice asked Chloe.
“I might as well,” Chloe said ruefully, “Then maybe I will be able to sit down for dinner tonight. I could really do without another scene like breakfast.”
She blushed. Having been required to stand at the mantle with her bare bottom on display breakfast had been an embarrassing ordeal. But at least she wasn’t alone. Kirsty, Helen and two other young ladies had joined them in being teased.
“I wouldn’t hold out too much hope,” Claire said as she eyed Chloe’s bare bottom.
“How comes you have been left… exposed so to speak?” Kirsty asked Chloe, “You’re not being punished. You were strictly a volunteer.”
“More fool her,” Helen said tartly.
“Adrian ordered it,” Chloe said somewhat dreamily.
“And what Adrian says goes,” Alice said gently mocking her.
“You should know,” Helen countered.
“Touché,” Alice agreed, crinkling up her nose.
“How does it feel to be a fully-fledged member of our little club?” Kirsty asked.
“Painful,” Chloe said crisply with an emphatic nod.
They all laughed.
“What time’s your race?” Claire asked as she nibbled on another sandwich.
“Ooh, don’t remind me,” Helen wailed. “I am having such a nice time. Don’t spoilt it.”
“Are you taking part?” Alice asked Chloe.
“No, Adrian didn’t order it,” Chloe smirked, “But I will be watching.”
“It’s sooo embarrassing,” Helen said with a pout.
“Oh it can be fun, I don’t mind,” Kirsty asserted unconvincingly.
“Rather you than me, especially with a behind like yours today,” Alice gaped, “Pony races are definitely not my thing.”
“I suppose that’s why it is reserved for punishment,” Chloe suggested.
Alice looked at Claire who let a smile touch her lips.
“It is for some anyway,” Alice said.
“When is your party of welcome?” Helen asked to change the subject.
“Oh… I don’t know,” Chloe looked down and blushed, “After a private dinner with Adrian to celebrate anyway.”
“Ooh,” the other girls sang, with Kirsty adding a wolf-whistle.
“And when will that be?” Alice asked innocently.
“Just as soon as I can sit down in a restaurant I think,” Chloe said pointedly.
“So never then, if I know Adrian,” Claire said ruefully.
And they all laughed.
Ends.
