Chapter 1
Thwikk!
The good-looking American woman paused in the upstairs corridor of the big colonial house. It was early afternoon, and Africa slept. The dry rapping sound behind the closed door had drawn her short. There was something categoric in the sound. The door was that of her niece's bedroom.
Thwww-lllk!
There it was again. This time it was followed, after an interval, by a moan. "Ow!"
Her heart beat a little faster. Unmistakable. Once more she heard the muffled snap, like a twig bent in two, and at the sounds of subsequent movement she went on. She was sitting reading an old copy of The Tattler in the chintzy living room when her sister came down a minute later.
Cynthia Reddick strode down the stairs into the room in a bleached settler's shirt and fitting chino slacks. Her jodhpur boots clomped on the floor as she crossed to a table and poured herself a drink. It was foaming beer. At thirty-two she looked in the flower of her blonde beauty, thought Joanna summing up the strong back down which the nearly white braid hung. The hips were firm and well defined. Cynthia patted them as she drank.
Until arriving in the Territory two days before, Joanna had actually only seen her junior sister on one occasion since her marriage to Alec Reddick. That once had been an unsuccessful visit to New Hampshire, during which Cynthia had first counseled the divorce which Joanna was now consummating. Despite her own three years in advance, her sister, she could not help thinking, looked somehow much more stable and, yes, mature. Cynthia's hair had bleached in the sun-Joanna's was close to jet black-and she had put on weight in the chest. Moreover, as was again apparent when she turned, Cynthia didn't wear bras. Joanna felt a faint embarrassment as she saw her sister run a palm over one of those shamelessly thrusting mounds, crowned with a medallion of rubbery nipple that prodded like a thumb at the slightly sweaty shirt.
"I enjoyed that," Cynthia Reddick said.
"What? The beer?"
"No. The dire execution, I fear."
"Meaning?" Joanna asked noncommittally, yet with beating heart.
"I had to cane Pam."
"Good grief! What for?"
"Dirty nails at lunch. Didn't you notice?"
"But, gracious, isn't that rather," she faltered, "severe?"
Still feeling her nipple, Cynthia gave her sister a long and level stare. "Darling, if you're going to stay with us out here, to get over this emotional tangle you're in, you'll have to accept from the start that we do have a rather special society here. These days we're rather proud of it. We have certain customs, however."
"Of course. I'd heard."
"One of them is corporal discipline. We believe in it. I won't ask you to understand it all right away, but I do suggest you scrap any of Reddick's psychology stuff about raising one's hand against poor defenseless children and the like. I gave Pamela four cuts with a very whippy cane across her bent and delectable bottom. It'll make her think twice about failing to wash her hands before lunch again. Hence, it's in her interest, isn't it?"
"But ... didn't it hurt?"
Cynthia laughed outright. Froth clung in a strand to her curved upper lip. "I have that general impression, yes. I also have an idea that the next four are going to, even more."
"The next!"
"Yes, you see, I found that with all the excitement of your arrival and everything, milady hadn't waxed her cane. She's supposed to do that every night. So there's nothing for it but another dose." She rubbed her chino-shod rump with a grin. "Oh my aching back." Then she glanced at her watch. "Just as soon as time is up she'll be down to request it. Pam knows I hate to be kept waiting."
"But...." Joanna stammered weakly. "I mean, isn't it a bit ... Mother never...."
"Darn right. We didn't get it enough. Oh come on, Jo, I'm not going to hang, draw and quarter the kid. Look. Since you're planning to stay with us, it might be as well if you came and watched." There was a pause. "That magazine's upside down in your lap anyhow."
Flushing, Joanna was about to straighten it when footsteps sounded on the stairs and Pamela Reddick hove into view.
She was thirteen, and, thanks to Territory conditioning and life, well grown for her years. "Unlucky thirteen," she liked to call it, after a beating. Her fair hair was cut short and she had a chubby body of whose hinder parts Joanna had, since arrival, found herself somehow continually conscious of. Most of the day the girl seemed to wear, as now, the brief tunic affair of her school, the skirt of which emphasized her behind. She had taken an immediate shine to her new-found aunt and, foot trailing on the last step, she looked the epitome of healthy girlhood.
Except for an apprehension behind her clear blue eyes.
"I'm ready, Mother."
Cynthia Reddick drained her beer. "For what."
"To be punished."
"Oh come, Pamela. Mrs. Swanne's interested. Tell your aunt exactly what is to happen to you."
Expressionlessly the girl said, "I'm going to be chastised for an Omission."
"Pamela. Please." She turned to Joanna. "This is important. Her imagination has to be involved."
The girl frowned. "I mean I'm going to have to bend over and be beaten across the bottom with a cane."
"You can do better than that."
She took a breath. Looking straight ahead, she tried again-"When I've been a naughty girl I have to bend over so's to tighten my butt for the beating. My buttocks are then bared and across their naked, stretched surfaces, I get a good cutting with the cane."
"Yes, that's better. Caned across the buttocks. Hard. Did those last four hurt?"
"Very much, Mother."
"The next will more. You don't feel any injustice about being punished in this way, Pam?"
"Injustice?" The girl looked puzzled. " 'Course not."
"Fine. I'll be right up. As your aunt is going to watch you swished, try to put up a decent show." At this information the girl's foot trailed again on a stair, but she went up without a further word.
Cynthia Reddick flexed her arm. "I really must remember to follow through this time."
"I must say you...." Joanna began with a confused and nervous laugh, but let it die. "Well, don't you think we should ... go up?"
"A little suspense never did a sinner any harm."
When some minutes later they entered the girl's prim and tidy bedroom they found her sitting on her bed, twisting a length of string. She stood up as soon as they came in. A cane lay across a table at the side. It looked long, lean, and very yellow, Joanna remarking that it had no handle, rather a knob at the gripping end. She found it strangely fascinating and embarrassing.
But Cynthia, ignoring her daughter, drew Joanna to the wide windows, which opened on the upstairs veranda and a view of the estate and the mountains beyond. She could see Alec's offices to the left, the swimming pool, tennis court-on which she had already played with Pamela-and the stables. A few Negroes slapped contentedly about the courtyard to the right. The sun poured down.
"The cane, Mother," said a voice behind them. Cynthia, however, continued to talk until she slowly shed her pale shirt. Then she turned and faced the girl.
What a pair, thought Joanna with a jolt. Her sister's breasts were thick through and firm, tremendous outward-thrusting mounds with hard, wrinkleless brown nipples and huge aureoles. They might have been in milk so tensely did they swing. Pamela, whose eyes were on a level with their long slopes, seemed to regard them with awe. She looked extremely frightened.
"This is a number one, or classroom, cane," Cynthia said, taking it and flexing it across her thighs in front. "Ours are all graded. This is light but stingy, especially at the tip." With a smile she raised it and bent it across her inflated chest, then thrashed it through the air twice, wickedly. Joanna felt her mouth go dry. "Perfectly designed for connecting with what portion of the anatomy of naughty girls, Pamela?"
"The buttocks, Mother."
"The bent buttocks, please." Pensively she sucked a second on the holding knob. Her eyes met Joanna's, who quickly dropped hers. Cynthia laughed. "It is phallic, at that. Pammie, have you ever frigged your clit with this?"
Joanna caught her breath.
"No, Mother."
"Sure?"
"No, Mother."
"No, you're not sure, or no, you have never...."
"I've never masturbated with the cane handle," said the girl hurriedly, staring at the floor.
"Well, dear, as your aunt has never seen you punished before, I'll offer you a deal. Four on the bare or you can keep your teddies up for six." She turned to Joanna. "Quite a poser, actually. On the skin I can see the marks and place 'em accordingly. On her knicks I might space them out more. That is, unless I chalk the cane first."
"Will you, Mother?"
"Unnecessary. You're going to have a warm enough tail as it is, anyway."
"Then," came out after a frown at the floor, "I'd rather keep my things on."
"Vanity, vanity," laughed Cynthia in reply. "Six of the worst it is. Bend over and let me get at you. Let's have that bottom stuck up tight."
Without further ado the girl went to a table and stretched across it, arms in front of her, legs together. Her mother peeled up her skirt and drew tight the soft navy panties.
These, Joanna soon saw, biting her lip, would afford little or no protection. They defined the sturdy cheeks closely, and indeed, a dull weal of dark red led eloquently out from the right.
"Push it back and spread them out. Come on, you know what I mean. Don't be so bashful, Pam. I'm sure your aunt knows how a woman's made ... behind."
The girl arched her back. At the base of the cheeks the slit fruit of a pulpy vulva pushed at the material. Joanna thought it seemed moist there.
"Oh good heavens," said Cynthia, striding forward and feeling. "I do believe you're all wet." She rolled her eyes expressively at Joanna. "She's incorrigible. But we'll soon stop that monkey business."
With the concentration of a golfer she addressed her target; the measuring stroke wobbled the buttocks slightly. She took a pace back, and swung.
Phhhfwckk!
The swing was slower than Joanna expected but the cruel crack with which it was completed on impact evinced how wristily, expertly, and thoroughly painfully it had been driven home. Her own fists bunched. There was a soft gasp but whether it was her own or the girl's she could not truly say.
The second cut clung a second to the flesh before it bounced back elastically-there was even a sense of dust drawn up.
"Ow!" The girl shuffled her feet.
There was a longer pause before the third one, which fairly splattered into the cringing fat.
"Hou!"
"Brace your knees back."
"S-sorry, Mother."
Joanna was amazed at the girl's stoicism as much as anything. The fourth and fifth whipped round the bent buttocks regularly. The legs rubbed, the cheeks clenched, but otherwise she controlled herself. She let out a stifled pant "Oooo-uuuuuuuh!"
"And one makes-six!" said Cynthia cheerfully, belting into the bottom twice as hard.
The girl squawked, rose on tiptoe, but remained where she was, wringing her hands together with a contorted face.
"She has to stay down," Cynthia explained pleasantly, "until Permission. Pain from a cane mounts. It's worse several seconds later. All right, dear, all over."
Joanna had been looking at her sister and the sight that greeted her at the table's edge all but took her breath away. Pamela was arched erect, speechlessly kneading her bottoms, her face red and twisted. She arched her back in some crescendo of pain.
"May I go to the bathroom, please, Mother."
"No, let's see you enjoy yourself here for a moment."
Miserably the girl turned from them, still clasping herself behind and now hopping in pain. It was clear it had anything but subsided. Indeed, with pounding pulses, Joanna saw one spasm squeeze the young body almost uncontrollably, tears squirting from her eyes.
"Come on, hands at your sides."
For a second it seemed that the girl wasn't going to be able to obey. She looked hopelessly at her mother.
"Take your hands away from your posterior portions, Pam, or I shall order you back to that table, take down your pants and give you three as hard as I can."
The girl clutched desperately at her thighs.
"That's better. We believe in control in the Territory. All right, get along with you then."
There was a rush, a slammed door, and the sound of water running.
As Cynthia slipped into her shirt, Joanna saw that her chest was sweating.
"Well? What did you think? like to try some?"
"I thought it was extremely severe," she answered in as level a tone as she could summon.
"Nonsense, she'll be as right as rain in a jiffy." Tossing the cane on the bed she stood up straight. "However, ten strokes across a fairly small fanny tend to hurt. I think you'll find Miss Negligent more careful in future. If she has more than a dozen in a day she gets a black mark."
"What's that?"
The blonde goddess pointed to a chart over the bed. Joanna noticed two black stars, like asterisks, and writing next to them.
"Blacks are paid off the first Saturday each month. Each one involves three strokes. Er, with the birch."
"Oh no."
"Listen, darling." Cynthia came close, her hands on Joanna's ample hips. "We want you to like it here. Relax, Alec and I have promised to do everything we can to see you through this time. But you have to accept us as we are. We're an open, frank and free society. No hang-ups." Her hands slipped lower, cupping the slabby seat in its trim skirt. "You've got a lovely bottom, Jo. It'd be a heavenly one to beat."
"What!"
"Oh come on, don't pretend. Admit it excited you too."
"Did it you?" she answered unhappily, turning her face.
"Not during, of course, I was simply doing my dity then. Justice. But before, and after-that's what we call our moment of honey. Oh God, there's nothing like it on earth. And I have an idea you know that, Jo. I have a strong suspicion I'm not the only one standing here with a wet snatch."
"Cynthia. Please!"
"like to let me feel?"
"No."
The younger woman smiled wryly. "Well, I don't mind telling you that I'm sopping. And I'm going to my room to enjoy myself."
"What!"
"Toss myself off, silly. Unfortunately Alec isn't around with the necessary length of gristle, but I do have an admirable vibrator. Lend it to you any time."
"And you ... oh!" Joanna hid her head in her hands. "And Pam ... what about her? If you caught her masturbating you'd probably whip the daylights out of her at this rate."
Cynthia exploded into laughter. "Are you kidding? Masturbating? Pammie? What in heaven's name do you think she's doing now?"