Our story began here.
It was harder than she thought to follow the action once it got outside. Mary trudged like a condemned woman naked and exposed to the breeze while Drake followed her at a short distance. Sylvia could only leave the house once they had got clear of the garden and she quickly realised that if she stayed behind the Spankman then she would not see much of the housekeeper.
The route the punitive pair took to the woods behind the house was perilously public, but not so much so that they were bound to be seen. Sylvia could only guess at what was going through Mary’s mind and the fear and embarrassment of exposure must have been great.
It did not escape Sylvia that there was a risk to her husband’s reputation as well as her own if Drake and Mary were caught, but that made it all the more exciting and Sylvia knew that she would have done nothing to intervene even if she could.
Eventually the couple reached the woods and the terrain allowed Sylvia to close the gap without being seen. The path between the trees widened out a little to allow the sunlight to pour like gold onto the scene and Sylvia could see everything.
Mary’s mortified and fiercely blushing face was in marked contrast to her dignified poise so that above the neck she appeared as a lip-biting miscreant teen, while at the same time striking the pose of a goddess. The only thing that marred her pale flawless skin were the red ovals of spanked flesh that dominated her bottom.
“That’s far enough,” Drake said in a severe voice, “Here take this and cut me some good stiff birch lengths.”
The Spankman handed the nervous looking Mary a small pocket knife and then stood back to watch while she stooped to her task.
As the housekeeper bent over to take cuttings she left nothing to the imagination behind and Sylvia blushed, both thrilled and horrified that she too could one day be in the same position.
It took no more than 20 minutes to complete her work and they were soon heading back to the house so that Sylvia had to duck into the undergrowth.
As Mary passed her hiding place, Sylvia could see that had the housekeeper not been naked, she would appear to have merely been collecting a bouquet for the house and even at a distance with the withes gathered to her chest most people would have passed by without a glance.
Also, from her vantage point under a holly bush, Sylvia had a closer look at Mary’s very sore bottom. It was still lightly swollen with a heavy red stain and concealed woman could not help wondering what a birching on such sore skin would feel like. But Mary herself had admitted that she and some of the other women needed such treatment, an admission Sylvia had not first understood but which recent events had led her to open her mind to it.
Once the couple had passed on their return to the house Sylvia quickly realised that there was little chance of following them and she would be better off going around and getting back to her place at the library door ahead of them.
*
It had taken Sylvia longer than she thought to get around the house, even in an unseemly haste. So by the time she reached the library, Mary had already been placed in the corner while Drake set about examining and preparing the withes of birch for a rod.
At first Sylvia thought that she was in for a tedious wait and considered going away and timing a return. She even wondered if she could ‘chance’ upon the scene in her own right and be allowed to watch anyway. But as she looked on she became fascinated by the craft with which Drake assembled the instrument of correction and besides, she had not yet got bored with watching the humble housekeeper in the corner. So although he was in no hurry and it was an hour or so before he was ready, the time fled away from the hidden voyeur.
Sylvia dimly remembered that the Victorians and Edwardians used to soak birch rods before use, but maybe that was just to store them. Certainly, she was sure that the Scandinavians and Northern Germans used ‘green’ or freshly cut lengths of birch or some other wood in saunas. Was it the same here?
All this and other things poured through as she watched but finally he was ready.
Drake cut a couple of swipes through the air which made both the hidden Sylvia and the cornered Mary jump.
“You have provided enough material here for three large governess birch rods,” Drake said, breaking the silence.
“Yes Sir,” Mary said meekly.
“One should probably suffice and I can save the others for your Russian maid,” Drake said approvingly. “Although that one could stand a prolonged taste of a judicial birch if you ask me. Where is she anyway?”
“She is rather… challengingly secured in the basement Sir,” Mary said, sounding for a moment like her usual self. “And for what it is worth, I agree with you about the judicial birch.”
“Today it is not worth much, so keep your opinions to yourself or else you will feel more than one of these.”
“Yes Sir,” Mary said hastily.
Finally satisfied that the birch was ready Drake took off his jacket and then moved to a more favourable position with the birch.
“Are you ready?” he said.
“Yes Sir.” Mary’s voice was tight but Sylvia saw her raise her bare bottom a little as if pointing it at what was to come.
“This,” Drake said as he raised his arm with the birch, “Is going to hurt.”
Sylvia gaped as a bitter rattle-swish sound filled the room and before she knew it the rod descended with a mighty thwack that caused Mary to grunt.
“That’s what I like about you Ms Granger, you can handle a lot,” Drake chuckled.
Before the second stroke landed Sylvia could see a bumpy rash on Mary’s bottom and licked at her lips.
Mary took three more before she truly screamed and by then her bottom was already looking pretty raw.
I am going to love this, Sylvia thought as she hugged herself. Both her head and her heart entered free-fall.
The strokes that followed, and there were many, left Mary’s bottom a ravaged mess. Although true expert that he was and as raw as his handiwork appeared to be, nowhere had he broken the skin. Not that Mary could have cared less. Her bottom was on fire and she had long since given up trying to take it.
“Please Sir, please” she bawled; which was ambiguous at best, Sylvia thought.
“I think my work here is done,” Drake intoned, “Once I release you, you can go to your room. I have other bottoms to fry.”
Sylvia thought of Tatiana and wondered how she might watch.
*
Try as she might, Sylvia could not find a way into the basement and even the door that Drake had taken seemed to lock behind him. Mental note to self, ask Mary about the basement sometime, Sylvia thought in her frustration.
Having failed to spy on Tatiana’s fate Sylvia hung back and waited for Mary to go upstairs, after all this was her house, why shouldn’t she go and see the housekeeper if she wanted?
Sylvia was only dimly aware of where Mary’s rooms were but she knew that it was somewhere upstairs in the same wing as the library. Unfortunately all the doors upstairs were alike and there was no one about to ask.
She was just about to give up when she noticed a door above the half stair had a Russian poster on it. It seemed probable then that if it was Tatiana’s room then all the doors on that floor were staff quarters. Then she saw that the door at the far end was open slightly and judging from its position, the quarters there were a little larger than the rest.
Sylvia swallowed a sudden bout of nerves and ignoring the butterflies in her tummy walked boldly up to the door and gently knocked.
“Ms Granger,” she called out tentatively.
There was a muffled sound and after a pause a strained voice called back “Yes?”
Sylvia doubted she would get a better invitation than that, so she pushed open the door and went inside what turned out to be a well-appointed flat.
“Ms Granger, are you there?” Sylvia called again.
“Mrs Peters,” Mary replied in a thick voice, “I am rather… indisposed at the moment.”
Pressing forward to the source of the voice Sylvia found what was obviously a bedroom door and carefully pushed it open.
“Oh,” Sylvia said in a neutral voice, “Can I help?”
Mary Granger was still naked and lay face down on her bed. The generous hump of her bottom was covered with what looked like a damp cloth and as Sylvia entered the room the housekeeper looked up sheepishly and blushed.
“Please Mrs Peters, maybe you could… I mean to say I am…” Mary blustered seeming as vulnerable as Sylvia had yet seen her.
“I know,” Sylvia admitted, “I… eh, well I peeked.”
This revelation did nothing to ease Mary’s blush, but she nodded and lowered her chin to the bed.
“I told you didn’t I? Mr Drake calls about once a month to attend to certain… needs,” Mary said ruefully.
Sylvia crept nearer, her eyes fixed upon Mary’s sore red bottom.
“May I?” she said and reached out to slowly lift the flannel off of Mary’s behind without waiting for a reply. “Oh gosh, that looks sore.”
“I have had worse, much worse as it happens,” Mary said ruefully. “There is a couple, the Brauns, they live in Berlin… well they can skin a bottom so sore than afterwards a feather’s touch is enough to make you cry and beg for mercy. Before they are halfway through with me I am begging to do anything they want. And I do mean anything. Have you any idea how much freedom and satisfaction there is in such submission?”
Sylvia swallowed and her heart raced at the anecdote. If her husband didn’t come home soon she would have to dust off the rabbit, she thought shamefully.
“I see that you do,” Mary smiled. “You are beginning to find yourself aren’t you?”
Sylvia blushed, “But… that is me. What about you? Don’t you hand it out? I mean I… I couldn’t be like you,” she said, her eyes wide.
“That’s the dilemma isn’t it? For as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with spanking and punishment; either my own or another woman’s. I almost lost myself at the Brauns, I went too far one way. Here with your husband I have… a balance.”
“I don’t understand. Where does my husband fit in and what does he want with me? How did he know that one day I would…?”
Mary shrugged.
“I don’t think Gerald is omniscient. I have no idea what he had in mind for you. But I have come to realise that he loves you. Maybe that is all there is to it,” she said.
“I am sure you are wrong,” Sylvia insisted.
Mary shrugged again and said nothing.
“He is coming home on Saturday. It’s tearing me apart,” Sylvia continued.
“How so?”
“I have never wanted to see him before, not really. But now I do. But somehow I don’t think I… I don’t deserve him or any of this do I?”
“That remains to be seen doesn’t it?” Mary said with a tight smile.
“I am sorry I spied on you but…” Sylvia looked at the floor.
“Trust me, you will be,” Mary said sharply. “Now if you don’t mind, please go.”
