Cane discipline | EVE IN EDEN | bdsm club stories

The lean Scot, hesitated as if unwilling to leave a woman alone in this place, then relaxed.

"Well," he said, "if Mrs Borenson is coming to meet you, you'll be alright.

Gordon keeps a strict rod, and has her well in hand."

Before Eve could recover from the insultingly patronising tone of his remark, he had made his farewells and walked off to his waiting car, as she sat and seethed.

When they'd roomed together at college, Daphne had made no secret of the customs of the island, and women's position there; how every woman, whatever her age, must have a male protector and how all, whatever their station, were subject to hot rods on bare bottoms, and other physical forms of discipline, but somehow it seemed remote and unreal. Anyway, it was different hearing it from a woman. She resented this man's oblique allusions to it, just as she resented his 'old world charm', his careful solicitude for her comfort, his attention to manners, stepping ahead of her to open doors, taking possession of her carry-on bag. She found it wholly patronising. She wondered in fact if his anxiety over leaving her alone in the tiny airport arrivals lounge was not so much a matter of caring for her security as a dislike of leaving a female visitor, a loose cannon, at large without some firm male hand in control. She was glad to see him go.

His presence had been a burden to her since they had first come across each other on the mainland, when he had appointed himself her guardian for the flight to L'Ile de Paradis. As a liberated woman of twenty-eight, with a successful career and two husbands behind her, she particularly resented his patronisingly

'protective' attitude. At any minute she expected to be addressed as 'little woman', or 'my dear young lady'. In fact he proceeded to address her as 'gurll'

in his pronounced Scottish brogue. She tried to tell him that it was

'inappropriate' but he swept her protests to one side and pressed on in his male arrogance. In her present mental state it was too much hassle to try and reform such an antediluvian MCP; after all she was here to get over the trauma of a second failed marriage, and they were only committed to a few hours of flight together.

Looking back, she could see that she should have anticipated a meeting with a male of this variety; given the reputation Eden had been given by her roommate at college. She was in fact here at Daphne's invitation, persuaded by the sympathetic and understanding letter she had received, in reply to her own, with its news of yet another failed relationship. Actually she was surprised that Daphne was not there to meet her, but an immigration officer soon explained the absence.

"If you would just wait here a minute," the official said, after consulting her papers, and the letter from Daphne's husband sponsoring her while she visited the island, "Mrs Borenson has some business to conclude in the traffic section.

It should not take long."

She already knew the island's reputation for strict immigration controls, and that she was only permitted to land by the sponsorship of Daphne's husband, Gordon, and must stay at all times under his protection, or that of his representative, in this case Daphne. Ordinarily she would not have put up with such blatant discrimination against women, men were not subject to anything like the same restrictions, but she was here to mentally convalesce, and was prepared to over-look such out-dated attitudes for a while.

As the hum of the departing Scot's car faded, total quiet fell over the deserted arrival hall, save for the faint cries of birds in the trees on the far hillside. The quiet was pricked, though hardly broken, by a small sharp sound as of a folder slapped down on a desk, or a sticky drawer thrust home. It seemed to come from one of the anonymous offices a yard or two to her left. There it was again, that small crisp snapping sound. And again. It seemed to have a slow rhythm of its own, a ten second clock beat, that caught her attention and had her straining her ears to detect the next. Four came and with it a small animal sound. Five ticked by in step with four, a faint punctuation mark in the otherwise still hall, then six, and with it the animal sound again, though louder this time, and followed by what she took to be a female voice, though she could not make out any words. The silence drew out, and she thought whatever had caused the snail slow metronome beat was over when a seventh sharp cusp of sound came to her. This time the animal mewl was higher and louder, something in pain, and it was followed by two female voices, one making some sort of statement, the other merely acknowledging, then more silence, or did she detect a shuffling sound.

Suddenly Daphne was there, straining blindly in the doorway, oblivious for a moment of her guest, her body rigid, her head arched back, her face twisted in a grimace of pain, her hands bunched into fists by her sides as if she fought some desperate urge to bring them behind her.

"Daphne." Eve called, conscious that her friend had not seen her, even though she was seated barely five yards away.

"Hello, Darling," Daphne called, seeming to suddenly come back from some distant place. "Sorry to keep you waiting, but I'm afraid I had a parking offence to clear. Ouch!" she groaned, clutching her behind, "That stings."

She screwed up her face in concentration.

"Damn, it's always worst just after. And Gordon thought I needed livening up this morning, eight stingers as soon as my feet touched the floor it should have been six, but he claimed I moved. And I'm walking a pair today. Double threaded too. God, I'll be like steak Tartar down there before I can get back into decent underwear."

Eve looked at her in bewilderment. She knew about the corporal punishment of course, Daphne had warned her what to expect, although, as a temporary visitor, she would be immune during her stay, but it was one thing to hear about it in theory, quite another to encounter her friend, red-faced, clutching her behind as if it was being attacked by a horde of bees, and talking of liveners and strange references to underwear.

"Eh, what do you mean, 'walking a pair'," she began, "and what's all this about liveners?"

"Tell you later," Daphne promised, still rubbing her well developed rump. "Just now I'm in a limited parking zone and the state my bottom's in, I think a further 'fine' might be a tad uncomfortable."

Sensing her friend's urgency, Eve didn't delay her further and followed her out to the car. Daphne opened the passenger's door for her to slide in, then went round to the other side to let herself into the driver's position. Looking across, Eve noticed the driver's seat carried a small grid of triangular section wooden slats, on top of the usual upholstery. As Daphne lowered herself onto this uncomfortable looking 'cushion' she hiked up her skirt behind, so that it did not come between her and the ridges of the slatted frame. Eve's eyes widened even further than at the strangeness of the wooden mat, and Daphne's partial baring of herself, when she saw the nature of her present underwear. Her ample, but shapely bottom, in contrast to the stylish sophistication of her designer suit and accessories, was adorned by a drab grey pair of antique pattern

'Directoire' knickers, that came almost to her knees, where elastic gripped her ivory flesh tightly below the unbecoming loose cotton 'bloomers'. Before the humiliatingly clad rump touched the sharp slats of the grid, she could see that there were two scarlet threads sewn across the full width of their widest part.

She could see also that, on the right flank, a small smudge of red had stained the thin cotton fabric.

But there was more. Before she actually lowered her buttocks onto the slats, Daphne deftly hooked her thumbs under the waist of the unlovely garment and pulled the rear part down until her shapely rump was exposed. Eve drew in her breath at the sight of the angry red stripes that covered it. Her mind went back to the strict girls' boarding school she had attended and conspiratorial sessions in the changing rooms after discipline hour, when girls had stripped and proudly displayed just such spoor.

A pained grunt marked Daphne's first engagement of her bared striated flesh with the hard ridges of the slats, and she wriggled as if trying to find the least uncomfortable position.

"What on earth are you sitting on?" Eve couldn't help asking. "Is that some sort of exercise thing?"

"An exercise in humility, Darling," Daphne told her, "I have to put this on my seat every time Gordon disciplines me. Helps to drive the lesson home while I drive, he says. Certainly doesn't let one forget one's been caned."

"But he didn't know you were going to be caned again so soon," Eve protested.

"Couldn't you just not use them, seeing that you've been so badly beaten?"

"Well," Daphne replied, "Gordon might excuse me or he might take the view that I'd brought it on myself by careless parking. In any case I'd always obey his

orders until he gave permission to do otherwise."

"But can't you ring him at the office and ask?"

"No way. That would be a real no-no. One does not ring a man at his office about something so trivial as domestic discipline, and a sore bottom."

Eve gave up the struggle and tried another tack.

"And what on earth are you wearing? You used to tell me a girl could never be really smart, even in a designer dress, if she wore cheap undies. It had to go all the way to the skin, you used to say, not just surface."

Daphne sighed.

"I see I'm going to have to confess all," she said, starting the car, "I'd hoped to break it to you gently, a bit at a time, but that beastly Parking Offence Officer wouldn't let me commute it to another time, so you got to see me in the heat of the moment as it were. Best I explain, before you get too overcome with curiosity, I suppose."

"Yes please, Dee. I'm bound to find out sooner or later, so I'd rather you prepared me for what goes on around here. Then I won't make a fool of myself,"

she added, "by letting my jaw drop every time some drawers drop, as it were."

"I expect you're right. I'm probably not thinking too straight. Gordon always does maintain we women keep our brains in our bottoms, and just now mine's sure feeling battered."

She concentrated a minute on getting the car out of the park, and onto what passed as a main road on the delightfully under-developed island. Eve noticed a little tightening of her lips from time to time as the car's movement caused her weight to shift on her seat. When they were clear and bowling sedately along the highway, Daphne took up the tale again.

"It's like this," she said, "as you know all we women have to have a male sponsor, father, husband, brother, son, who is responsible for our discipline, and that is by very physical means. By that I mean, usually, the cane, though some favour the strap, the crop, or even a rope's end. Floggings are not entirely unknown either but, thankfully, rare."

Eve shuddered but held her tongue, as Daphne continued.

"We get punished for every sin of commission or omission but, sometimes, just to make sure we feel our position appropriately, for nothing in particular, just a general livener. This morning Gordon thought I'd been getting a little lazy recently; not enough exercise, a drink too many here, a few cream cakes stuffed down there. Getting a bit of a roll on my belly he said, though he'd seemed to enjoy rolling on it himself last night. Anyway, by dawn's early light I have to slide out of the warmth of our bed and bend in the chill morning air and touch my toes, while he limbered up for the day by delivering six nice tight ones to my tender bottom."

"You said eight before," Eve corrected her.

"Don't remind me," Daphne pleaded, rolling her eyes, "Normally I can take a sixer without too much fuss, but I was cold and sleepy, and Gordon was hitting really hard, to warm himself up, and I did wriggle a bit, I guess. Didn't get up of course. not a good idea to do that round these parts, but I waggled my arse and he added a couple to remind me to keep still another time."

"Oh wow! First thing in the morning!" Eve exclaimed, "I'm never at my best then.

At the coll we got them in the evening usually, although I did once get a whacking before breakfast, when we used to get up early in the summer to do

exercises. I remember it seemed to sting a lot more."

"It does," her friend confirmed, emphatically.

"And then you got it again?"

"Yes, my own stupid fault," Daphne admitted, "I didn't look at the notices properly. Actually, they've altered the layout since I was last here, and the short stay spaces are at the other end. I had my mind on other things, principally the sting in my tail, and the sore seat I was sitting on, and the thought of meeting you again soon, and just didn't spot the change. Drove blithely into the Airport Manager's personal slot. Might have got away with just a warning if it had been any one else, though remission is a word almost unknown round these parts, but the Airport Manager! Next thing to God round here and I had to bend and bare for six crackers. Gordon can hurt, but he usually contents himself with a school type cane, except for serious offences. Here all offences are serious and it's a penal rod every time."

She screwed up her face at the memory.

"Nasty vindictive bitch that Parking Officer, and a local tennis champ as well.

My bare bottom against her penal rod; definitely no contest."

"Always on the bare?"

"Always," Daphne confirmed, "knickers down and bottom up. At least they give you a desk to bend over in there; it helps, but even so she claimed I moved and gave me another for luck."

"Thinking of knickers," Eve said, this talk of seemingly endless cuts on bare female bottoms beginning to raise ambiguous feelings in her belly and her feminist soul, best diverted into some other topic, "what on earth are those monstrosities you're wearing? I used to look up to you as the dictator of taste, from your shoes to your smile. Besides," Eve added with a giggle, "we always used to quote the old adage about what would happen if you had an accident while out or, better still, were surprised by the neighbourhood rapist."

"I was rather hoping you wouldn't remind me of those," Daphne sighed, "I'm not too happy about them myself. apart from the humiliation of wearing such gross objects, I do still take a pride in my undies. Even so, I can assure you, I'm not looking forward to handing them back. I was sent them this morning by the Bridge Club Committee, and have to return them at the meeting tomorrow evening."

"Oh, that's not too bad them," Eve said, with relief. "Beastly for you to have to wear such horrid pants, but only until tomorrow. Is that what you meant by

'walking a pair'?"

"Got it in one, girl," Daphne replied, "but there's more to it than just wearing them. It goes like this. If you do something that offends one of the women's groups, the tennis club, the swimming club or, in my case, the bridge club, the committee may decide to "send you a pair', and have you 'walk' them until the next committee meeting, or whenever. These arrived this morning, with a Bridge Committee card attached '7.30 tomorrow' written on it."

"So?"

"So, tomorrow I have to report to the Bridge Club committee and lower these disgusting drawers and take another thrashing on my poor sore bottom. Not funny since there will already be fourteen welts on it. That is if Gordon doesn't decide on a few more liveners before then, or decides I've offended in some way," she added glumly, "He's not above punishing me himself for getting into this scrape, but I'm hoping he'll be kind and not insist this once. After all, he did give me my 'liveners' on the basis that I didn't seem to be likely to get

anything else in the near future. Bad forecast that."

"You poor thing," Eve sympathised then, overcome with feminine curiosity, "how many?"

"That's the worst of it," her friend answered with a bitter laugh, "I expect you saw those scarlet threads. One thread, six strokes; two, a dozen. That makes twenty eight in two days, always assuming I don't collect any more along the way, and that I manage to stay down at the club. Not easy with Angela on the end of the rod, and she's bound to be. She'd never turn up a chance to whip my arse.

Mind you," she added, "I'd do the same for her."

"Are you such sworn enemies then?" Eve said, surprised.

"Enemies! Oh no, we're the best of friends. I can see you've a lot to learn about our way of life during your stay."

"It would seem so," Eve replied dryly, "it all seems over the top, and more like torture than discipline, to me."

"You poor thing," Daphne replied, "you did rather walk into it at the deep end didn't you. Me with my sorry arse cut to ribbons, and more promised for tomorrow. Don't worry. It's not all like that. You just caught me on a bad day, I'm afraid. Usually I reckon on going at least a fortnight, and sometimes three weeks or even a month without getting myself welted to this degree. Well, not counting Gordon's liveners, of course; he'd never neglect me for that long, but they are by way of love strokes really and, if I'm really raw down there, he has been known to keep them down to two or three at a time. He doesn't say anything, but he's just an old softy underneath."

"A softy!" Eve almost squeaked in her indignation. "When he gives you even a couple on a bottom like you've got now?"

"Well, you must admit I'm no child; I've a fine broad bottom and there's plenty of room for a few. He'd never do anything to harm me, and I'd have to be pretty bad or foolish to earn a beating that would put me out of action for any time.

Normally I can take his canings and come up smiling the day after, especially,"

she grinned evilly, "if he gives me another kind of seeing to after he's dealt with my sins. Actually I can usually rely on it, as my naked arse reddening under the rod seems to get his rod equally red, and twice as stiff as that whippy cane. On the whole," she added pensively, "I think the afters are worth the entree. Sore but satisfied might cover it I think."

"You mean you actually enjoy it?"

Eve's outrage was beginning to surface despite her best efforts to avoid commenting on the customs of the country.

"Well not exactly enjoy it," Daphne cautioned, "but there are compensating factors. Being beaten by the women is the worst. They seem to be able to whip your soul as well as your butt. Ugh. Get right to you where it hurts your pride.

They can humiliate you until you squirm and want to sink through the floor. And no real erotic compensation afterwards."

"I thought you liked girls? I seem to remember some pretty hot nights at coll.,"

Eve reminded her, blushing herself at the memory.

"Oh, I do," Daphne assured her, "But not in the same way as men. Can't seem to get the same cure for a burning bottom from a girl. Of course the men encourage these inter-women discipline sessions. They know they hurt physically as deep as their own thrashings, and that the effect on the soul goes even deeper. Also, greedy beasts that they are, they can take advantage of our need for a little erotic therapy when we get back."

Although Daphne delivered this last in tones of hurt indignation Eve more than suspected that her real feelings on the matter were very different, and more close to the cunt wetting type than any sense of injustice about the matter. All this time they had been driving steadily along a narrow, though well maintained highway, first through a level plain, with cultivated areas that seemed to Eve's casual glance to be mainly fruits of all sorts flourishing in the semi-tropical climate, then the foothills, where the road became more winding, with the views becoming more spectacular with every metre of height gained. A temporary notice warned of road works ahead, and Daphne slowed then came to a halt as a uniformed woman stepped into the road.

"Sorry to delay you, Madame," the official said, through Daphne's opened window,

"but we've had a slight spillage ahead, and it'll take a few minutes to clear."

Eve could only gape. The spillage was little enough, just a wagon that had sunk into a ditch and tipped its load of ballast across the tarmac, it was the gang that was busy frantically shifting it with shovels and barrows. They were all women, and they were all stark naked, apart from straw hats to protect them from the sun. But that was all, unless one counted the steel bands on their ankles, and the gleaming chains that connected each woman to her neighbour on a classic chain gang.

"It's barbaric!" she exclaimed. "You can't treat women like this."

Daphne sighed.

"Just our luck to run into a road gang your first day. I was hoping to introduce you to our little ways in easier steps."

"But why are they here? Are they criminals?"

"In a way. Actually I suppose some of them might be serving time for offences you'd recognise as crimes back home; embezzlement, fraud, drunken driving, but many of them will be here for crimes against womanhood."

"You mean they attacked other women?"

"Only in principle. No-one is likely to have hit another woman over the head with her stiletto, though it has happened. Crimes against womanhood are those offences where the woman's behaviour has not been up to the standards required of women here and, hence have let all the other women down. Actually," she said, looking carefully at the line of sweating women, "I know one of these."

"Which one? What's she here for?"

"Hey slow down a minute," Daphne warned, "one question at a time. You see the well-built woman third from the right? That's Marjorie Pemberton. One of the bridge club, and plays tennis too. She and Bob come over to have dinner quite often. I did hear she was serving a term."

"What on earth for?" Eve wanted to know, "it must have been something pretty terrible to have her stripped and put to forced labour."

The expression was not unjustified. The guards, for now it was clear that that was the status of the uniformed officer who had stopped them, carried short plaited whips at their belts and were now using them to encourage the women to even greater activity. The guards seemed to take it as a personal insult that they were responsible for a road hold-up, and leather cracked on the bare back or buttocks of any woman not obviously busting a gut to shift the offending gravel.

Daphne regarded the straining crew with a jaundiced expression.

"I wish those lazy cows would get a move on," she complained, "These bloody slats are killing me. I don't appreciate having to sit here with a bottom as raw as meat, while they play sand castles."

Having seen the havoc in Dee's hinds, Eve could understand her impatience to get home, but thought her comments a little unfair on the naked crew shovelling the heavy ballast off the roadway. She could see the muscles rippling in their thighs and backs as they strained, the breasts of the older women, pendulous and heavy as they hung on their bent chests, flopping up to almost hit their chins as they threw great shovelfuls of grit into the side, the sweat making dark runnels in the thick coating of grim that covered their labouring bodies. As she watched, the strenuous whip-induced motion threw one woman's wide straw hat off her head to hang by a cord between her shoulder blades. She gasped in horror.

The woman was bald, her head a smooth shaven dome bobbing on her shoulders as she continued to dig as if the hounds of hell were after her, not daring to stop for even a second to replace her head covering.

"Why is that one bald?" she gasped.

"Oh they all are," Daphne replied evenly, "they all have their body hair, top and bottom, removed when they join the gang and are shaved again from time to time depending on their sentence."

"You haven't told me what your friend did that was so terrible."

"Oh, Marjorie you mean," Daphne replied, "Actually she's one of those that's been sent here without actually committing a crime as such. It's very much a matter between husband and wife but from what she's let drop from time to time, I gather that, when they were first going together, before they were married, they came across one of these gangs, just like we have today. Bob was fascinated by the situation and said he was going to make sure she went on a gang, once they were married. She made this bargain with him. If he didn't have her put away in the early days of their marriage, as he quite well could if he pulled a few strings, she would not try to contest a sentence if he applied for an order on their seventh wedding anniversary."

"And now they've been married seven years I take it. The man must be a bastard.

How long has she got?"

"Oh Bob's no worse than any other normal man round here. He treats her very well usually, just has this thing about wanting to see her working her guts out on a stinking chain gang, and he did keep his bargain, even though he would have loved to have seen her sweat earlier. She was going to have to do a month but at the last moment he told her he wanted to take a friend's wife to Europe for a month and he didn't want to be short changed, so she'd have to do another as well. He promised they'd come and see her before they set out, and he'd come and see her at work every day, once he got back. Actually it was Mary, his mistress, who drove Marjorie down to hand in her papers and join the gang."

"The bitch. That was really cruel," Eve protested.

"Oh that sort of thing happens all the time. Just a little finishing touch. You learn to accept it. What worries me more is that the other men might take up the idea. A sort of seven-year-stretch. I don't fancy the idea of sweating on a gang one little bit. I gather Bob was so keen on the idea he and Mary went to see her, her first day out, on the refuse collection in the city. Of course, it wasn't the same, she was wearing a clout, it being in town, so he'll be hot to come out as soon as he's back and catch her quite bare-arsed. Not that a clout hides much."

"What on earth is that, then?"

"Just a strip of cloth, a sort of modesty rag. You have a cord tied round your waist and this long narrow strip of cloth is threaded under the cord in front,

down and through your legs, then back up your crack and under the cord again in back. Covers your pussy, but not much else. Still it saves frightening the horses."

It was on the tip of Eve's tongue to express her disgust at the whole set-up and the supine way that women allowed men to trample on them when the guard who had stopped them blew a whistle and waved to Daphne to proceed. She engaged gear and rolled slowly past the line of panting perspiring women, their naked skins clotted with dirt, their bare feet scratched and calloused. They stood stock still, with military precision, their eyes set rigidly ahead of them, wearing their stripes like campaign ribbons. Eve sucked in her breath. Seen close to the welts were vicious. Most were on their backs, and away from her, but enough had curled round to leave savage bites on tender tit and belly to make it clear these were no love taps. The women varied in age from about twenty to somewhere about the forty mark. She could make a guess at their time on the line from the state of their sunburn on unprotected bodies and the state of their musculature, especially on bellies and forearms. Even the oldest displayed well-defined abs, and straight firm shoulders. No wonder she thought, gazing absently at the line of sweat encrusted shaven vulvas steaming in the sun.

As they passed the one she had pointed out as a dinner guest, Daphne rolled down the driver's window, letting in a fetid smell of hot unwashed woman flesh, and smiled at her. The woman stared straight ahead, forbidden to acknowledge civilians, tied tightly by the discipline of the line and the fear of the overseer's whips.

Her eyes drawn unaccountably to the woman's groin, Eve saw that she bore the number 387 in inch high numerals across her plump shaven mons. A quick glance showed that all the women sported a number, though the dust and sweat partially obscured them. As they drew away from the scene of feminine servitude she commented on them to Daphne who dismissed them airily.

"Just their prison numbers," she explained, "they all get a number when they go on the line."

"Oh well," Eve said, "I believe tattoos can be fairly easily erased now. They can get them removed when they come out or, perhaps, tattooed over with some more suitable design."

"Who's talking about tattoos? Those are put on with a hot iron. Brands. They're more or less permanent. We don't do things by halves in Eden. Besides, it's part of the ethos. A woman has too much pride to try and remove her marks, just as nobody here would seriously try to mitigate any ordeal or punishment"

"But they're disfigured for life!" Eve exclaimed, horrified.

"Oh I wouldn't say disfigured, some people find it quite attractive. Besides, they've been branded on their shaved mounds. When they've done their time they can let their muffs grow again. The fur will soon cover the marks and no-one will see but their lovers. Even then, he or she would have to be a fan of cunnilingus."

Eve would have liked to have asked a million more questions; a gang of naked women labouring on a chin gang is not your normal tourist attraction, but Daphne seemed to have become exhausted by the enforced delay.

"Actually darling I would like to concentrate on the road. I really can't afford another traffic violation. It's not just the state of my arse; that will heal, but if you accumulate too many debits it might be decided that you should spend a month or two on the hook to rehabilitate you, and I really wouldn't like that.

Besides, I wouldn't be here to take you round and satisfy that 'satiable curiosity of yours."

By now though they had reached the long driveway that led to Daphne's home and, Eve's mind was taken up by the beauty of the scene. The island had been everywhere pleasing as they had crossed it and climbed into the hills where the Borenson estate lay, but Eve's delight in it had been blunted by the distraction of Daphne's revelations, literally so in the case of her bottom, of the real nature of women's position here, but the actual sight of the house, set against a backcloth of trees and looking out over the plain to the sparkling edge of the sea, quite took her breath away. Eden indeed. Daphne seemed grateful to get off the subject of her martyred backside and, having seen Eve's bags carried to her room, the two of them explored the house and grounds happily until Gordon's car swept up the drive as evening fell.

He greeted Eve affectionately, telling her he'd heard much about her from Daphne and looked forward to getting to know her better, a sentiment that sent a strange electric sensation into her groin and knees, then kissed Daphne passionately, a passion that was fully returned. Eve could not help but wonder at their apparent love for each other given what she knew of his attentions to her in more brutal ways. Did she not resent his beating her for no purpose other than to 'liven her up'? It appeared not. She didn't even appear to object to his hand patting her roasted rump, though its continued soreness was reflected in a quickly suppressed tightening of her brow.

At dinner though she gave a pronounced wince as she sat down, having forgotten her bruised state for a moment in the animated conversation between the three of them. Gordon evidently spotted it for he laughed and remarked that he must have been on good form that morning if she was still feeling it.

"You were," Daphne replied with feeling. "But that's not all I've got down there," and she proceeded to give a blow-by-blow account of the afternoons events.

Gordon grinned.

"I'm sure it did you a power of good," he remarked, "let's have a look at the damage."

"Oh, men!" she complained to Eve. "They're all the same in these parts. Always want to get a peek at your bottom, especially if it's got roasted with a cane,"

but she didn't appear to her friend to be particularly unhappy about the fact.

As she lifted her skirt, and was about to pull down the hated drawers she was

'walking' Gordon checked her.

"What's this?" he queried, pointing to the shapeless grey pants.

"Got sent them by the Bridge Club," his wife informed him, "to be returned tomorrow."

"And double-threaded too, I see," Gordon observed, "what have you been up to?"

Daphne looked a little ashamed for the first time since she had begun her strip.

"Eh. I guess I might have started a few too many post-mortems. Only trying to help other people's game, you know, but it seems they didn't appreciate it."

Gordon laughed.

"Seems not. Better keep your mouth shut after rubbers in future I suggest. My, aren't we going to be one sore girlie tomorrow night. I'll have to think of some way of soothing it."

"You know damn well what I need," Daphne said, "I can see it tenting your trousers right now, and I shan't give you any peace until I get it."

It turned out to be a much more relaxed and enjoyable meal than Eve had expected but she took herself of to her own room soon after. It wasn't entirely because she was tired from the journey. Her host and hostess clearly had business of their own to attend to.

She slept like a log and awoke to the sound of unfamiliar birds and the sun streaming through the gap in the curtains. As she showered she thought of the previous day's revelations, snorting at the abuses that women seemed subject to out here. For some strange reason her hand kept soaping the same part of her anatomy and she suddenly realised she had been sliding her palm over one rounded buttock for a minute or more, contemplating it dreamily as if envisaging it striped and wealed like her friends. She snapped herself out of the alien mood and went down to breakfast.

She was joined in minutes by a tousle headed Daphne in a negligee that did little to hide her exuberant charms, her eyes smudged and bruised looking, her lips a little puffy, but her mood totally cheerful.

"Sorry I'm such a sight, Darling," she exclaimed, "but I couldn't wait. Sex gives me such an appetite, I could eat a horse," and she proceeded to demonstrate the truth of the claim, demolishing a mound of toast, and a platter of eggs and bacon that would have satisfied a coal-heaver.

Eve gathered that Gordon had done his duty by her, and that the bruised eyes and lips were battle scars in the war of love, not the result of her previous day's ordeal, and relaxed, as Daphne chatted happily and made plans for the day. They would explore the house and grounds, swim in the pool, laze in the sun, enjoy this Eden.

As they lay idly by the poolside Daphne asked her about her journey over the previous day.

"I should have asked you earlier," she apologised, "but I had other things on my mind."

"Like a dozen welts and a pair of drawers," Eve filled in mischievously,

"nothing much to report really. Oh there was this really patronising MCP on the flight. Local man, he has an estate on the other side of the island. Long lanky Scot. I think his name was Angus but I didn't really take it in, I was too busy trying to tell him I was an independent woman and didn't need a man's protection."

Daphne grinned

"That'll be Angus McKensie. Must have loved your attitude," Daphne said, "he comes from the Highlands."

"Of Scotland?"

"Well that's where he was born, I think, but I meant the Highlands here."

"I thought this was the Highlands," Eve replied, looking out over the land below their hilltop eyrie, to the distant sparkle of the sea.

"Oh the real Highlands are on the other side of the island, behind our backs.

Mountains almost. Your Angus lives on a big estate right up in the hills."

"He's not my Angus," Eve replied with feeling, "I wouldn't mind if I never saw him again. A totally disagreeable MCP."

"You mustn't be too hard on him," Daphne replied. "Underneath that rugged exterior there's quite a man. Strict I grant you. I knew his niece who was brought up by him. She says she was never beaten so hard as at home, but she still loves him dearly and is totally grateful to him for the way he raised

her."

"I can't see me ever submitting to a man like that," Eve retorted with feeling.

"It degrades women to have men like that around."

She was saved from further recollections of the disagreeable Scot by the arrival of a visitor. A figure on a bay horse emerged from the spinney below them and climbed the path to where they lounged beside the pool. The pretty brunette that sat the horse called out a greeting as she approached and Daphne rose to return it.

"Lovely to see you, Joyce. Stick that nag in the stable, Josh will look after it, and come and join us by the pool. There are some of my spare cossies in the changing room."

Joyce seemed to hesitate a moment.

"I think I'll just come as I am," she said.

"Nonsense, " Daphne said firmly, "You can't possible sit by the pool in those hot sweaty jodhpurs. Wouldn't be the right thing at all," and Joyce bowed to the inevitable and went to change.

"That's Joyce Besant," Daphne explained, while the newcomer was away, "she comes from a neighbouring estate, best part of an hour's ride across the hill, where she lives with her aunt and uncle and various cousins. Nice people, but her Uncle George gives his wife responsibility for female discipline in the household and I gather she makes it very hot for all the girls.

"Always nice to see her," Daphne continued, "we're very good friends, even though she's a few years younger and unmarried, but I've a sneaking suspicion that there's more to it than just a social call. Did you notice how stiffly she sat in her saddle?"

"Can't say I did," Eve replied. "To tell the truth I'd had my mind on other things. Is that significant?"

"I think so. Let's wait and see how she looks when she's in a bikini."

She looked stunning; tall slim, with good breasts and a delicate waist. Her long legs were topped by a delicious pair of tight buttocks, only nominally encased by the miniscule bikini bottom that she had no choice but to wear, since Daphne did not believe in hiding her own delights and all her costumes were of the briefest tanga type.

This left their visitor sporting two swelling globes crossed by the unmistakable spoor of the disciplinary rod, seven or eight thick purple tracks, well raised and, doubtless, hot and throbbing from their confinement in tight britches and the pressure of the saddle. The effect was noticeable in her gait.

"Trifle saddle-sore, Darling?" Daphne enquired innocently.

"Don't mention it," Joyce replied with feeling. "Seven sizzlers from Aunty June after breakfast, then told to take some exercise on a horse, to thump the lesson home. At least I had the thought of you to comfort me on the way, but it didn't entirely compensate. Who's your friend?"

Daphne made the introductions, and the three women all exchanged friendly kisses, something more than air pecks, more light pressure of lips on lips.

As they settled Joyce winced at the contact of the wooden slats with her bruised bottom cheeks.

"Wow. June really laid them on," she gasped.

Eve could contain herself no longer.

"Is everybody on this antediluvian island walking around with bruises on their behinds?" she enquired. "It's positively barbaric."

"Well fifty percent aren't, that's for sure," Daphne laughed. "The men don't go in for that sort of thing, and as to the other half of the population; well you've certainly had a rude introduction. First my raw meat yesterday, then Joyce's ripe cuts today. It isn't usually quite as bad. I dare say if you went down to the capital, right now, and could look into the panties of all the women, half of them would have significant marks, but you have to remember that a good beating lasts for weeks, so that probably means that they aren't beaten much over once a month, or put another way, we all get a good hiding every other month. A woman can't expect to stay healthy on much less."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this at the end of the twentieth century," Eve protested. "How can you talk so calmly about this gross oppression of women?"

Joyce's delicate plucked eyebrows lifted a fraction, and she looked across a trifle uncomfortably towards Daphne.

"You'll have to excuse my friend," Daphne said, "she only arrived yesterday, and hasn't had time to find her feet yet. Once she knows us better I'm sure she'll see things differently."

"Never!" Eve declared with feeling." Of course, I'll always respect your rights as women to do your own thing, but you'll never see me accepting such gross injustice and lack of respect for females."

"But darling, we're not abused and as for respect, you won't find any women on this island complaining that their men don't respect and love them. Isn't that so, Joyce?"

Joyce nodded in agreement and Daphne continued.

"The whole point is that both sides recognise the universal truth that your feminist friends persist in denying, that we women are creatures of wonder and fancy who will run amok and disrupt all around us, to our own unhappiness, if were not carefully guided by strict discipline. You wait until you have met a few of us, and compare our lives here with what you left behind."

It seemed pointless to argue, Eve thought, these women seemed inexplicably to have taken leave of their senses. If it wasn't that she'd seen livid evidence on both their bottoms, she'd have believed they were conducting some elaborate hoax at her expense. She let the matter drop and asked Joyce about her Uncle's estate.

It appeared it was even larger and, Joyce claimed, more beautifully sited the Borenson homestead, and Joyce insisted she had to see it for herself.

"Of course you must," Daphne agreed, "It's only a short ride away and you would love it there. Besides it would be good for you to meet some other people rather than be cooped up with me all day."

"OK, OK, you win," Eve laughed, "I can see you won't give me any peace until I promise. I'd love to come Joyce, just give me a few days to settle in and I'll be right over. I'm dying to ride one of Daphne's lovely horses and it would be just the opportunity."

"Thinking of which," Joyce said, "time I was back in the saddle, though I don't think I'm looking forward to the ride quite as much as you. Ugh. It's hard on a girl's bottom when she's got to put stripes to saddle. Aunt June hits hard and

put them just where the saddle fits. Thanks for the drink and the chat, Dee, but I've got to get back before I'm posted AWOL. No way I'm going to risk any more for a day or two."

Chapter 2: The Price Of A Pair

Every slap of the girl's shapely bottom on the hard hot leather of the saddle, had Eve wincing as she imagined the thick sore welts taking fresh punishment with every touch.

"Hell!" cried Daphne looking at her watch as Joyce disappeared into the trees again, "Is that the time? I'd better get going. Got to walk these pants tonight, damn it."

Eve had forgotten the looming session in the excitement of meeting a new friend but now all her old doubts came flooding back. She found herself torn between a feminist distaste for the whole proceedings, a need to respect Daphne's privacy and not add to her humiliation by being present, and loyalty to an old roommate. Just possibly a dash of feminine curiosity perhaps in the background as well, although she did not admit it to herself at the time. Finally loyalty, aided and abetted by that traitor curiosity, won out and she announced that she would accompany Daphne to the bridge club to give moral support. At first Daphne demurred, saying she'd be quite all right and she wouldn't dream of letting Eve in for yet another example of the island's strict way with women.

"It's out of the question," Eve darling. "A discipline night is no place for a girl like you. Just hearing about our beatings afterwards upsets you. No, I'm a big girl now, and I'll look after myself."

"Even big girls need a friend in trouble," Eve declared firmly, "No, I don't approve of women being whipped, but yes, I can take it, and I'm definitely coming along."

It was the irresistible against the immovable, but finally Daphne gave way.

"OK I know when I'm beaten. Oh God that's not what I meant to say. You can see it's getting to me, and I think perhaps I do need a minder. We'd better get going. I'm not anxious to earn any more than I'm going to get anyway."

Eve seemed to drift quite naturally into Daphne's room to watch her dress for the evening. First a shower, then a rueful contemplation of the already ravaged bottom.

"You poor thing," Daphne murmured, stroking her hand over the raised ridges of her underhang and addressing her bum, "I'm sorry to say I'm going to have to take you and put you out again for the rod. You're going to be even more sorry for yourself in a few hours."

"How can you joke at a time like this?" Eve asked. "Aren't you worried?"

"Aren't I just, I'm feeling quite weak at the knees if you must know, not to say a bit sick in my belly, but one's trained to put a good face on things here in Eden."

She dropped her nervous caressing of her own buttocks and set about getting dressed. Not a very elaborate costume; a black bra that hugged and cradled her splendid breasts, smoky dark 'stay-up' stockings, black suede pumps.

"Yuck, now for those horrid underpants. They're revolting enough at the best of times, but I particularly hate wearing knickers for two days in a row. I get so juicy down there and there's nothing more disgusting than having to put on a

sticky crotch."

Encased from knee to waist in the hated underwear she slipped a straight jersey dress over her head and smoothed it down.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"Delicious. I could eat you," Eve replied, and was suddenly hotly conscious that, though she'd started out just to say something facetious, to comfort her friend, she actually meant the words. She covered her confusion hurriedly.

"Don't you think we should get going? It's nearly seven already and I don't suppose you'd like to be late, even if it's not an event you're looking forward to."

"Too right, darling. Best be off, or those poor sitters of mine will be even worse roasted and neither they nor I want any part of that."

The big car sped smoothly down the road, the conversation nervous and disjointed. Each was acutely aware of where they were going and the disciplinary circumstances awaiting them. Eve found it difficult to think of any topic that did not seem to lead back directly to the caning of female bottoms, while Daphne tried her best to point out the beauties of the island along the way, but was distracted by similar thoughts. They were each almost relieved to reach the venue for the evening's events, the Ladies' bridge club.

Relaxing after a strenuous afternoon of bids and tricks, doubled and redoubled, points won and lost, contracts made and hands played, a score of smartly dressed women were sitting about in the well appointed room, sipping cocktails, and exchanging gossip. One or two actually indulging in the very crime that had brought Daphne the pair of degrading grey underpants she had now arrived to redeem. A long languid blonde waved a slim bare arm and called to them to join her.

"Hi Dee. Who's your friend?"

Daphne introduced Eve.

"This is Isobel Hakes, one of the regulars. Bel, I've got business with the committee. Could you take Eve under your wing while I do my stuff?"

"Business?" a plucked arched eyebrow rose an interrogatory fraction of an inch.

"Eh, um, that is I'm 'walking'," Daphne replied a little more nervously than Eve remembered her doing any time in the past.

Isobel grinned like a cat.

"I did wonder," she said, "word had got around. Nothing definite you understand but well, you can see that rather more members than usual stayed on for an extra drink tonight. You'll have to put on a good show for us."

"I'll do what I can but I'm double-threaded. I can't promise to entertain you."

"Oh but you will. You have a lovely bum and there's a lot of women in the room creaming at the thought of it being put up, up there."

"You amongst them, I can tell. Well I don't care if you wet your knickers, so long as you take care of Eve for me. Wish me luck."

They did and Daphne disappeared in the direction of the committee room at the end of the hall.

Beside it was a raised stage. At present it was bare, save for a single hard backed chair, set in its centre. After five minutes or so an older but still handsome woman, with neatly shaped dark hair and a full but shapely figure, climbed the short stair to the platform and rapped on the chair with the stiff cane she carried to gain attention. She got it. It was a sound to strike echoes, if not actual fear, into any female heart present and, besides, they were here to have their senses thrilled by the display about to take place on the stage and were not inclined to delay their anticipated pleasure by chattering on. All fell quiet instantly, though not before Isobel had leaned across and whispered,"

That's Julia, the Hon, Sec. Now the fun's about to begin. Poor Dee."

"Ladies, may I have your attention. Before you go tonight, we shall witness a disciplinary proceeding. There is a pair to be walked."

There was a subdued murmur as the rumour was confirmed, quieted as Julia held up her hand for silence. "Will Mrs Borenson stand forward please."

All eyes turned to the corner of the stage, where Daphne appeared from the wings. She had shucked off the jersey dress and stood clad only in her bra, hose, heels, and the dire drab drawers.

"Daphne has been found wanting by the committee, who have received many complaints about the nature and, particularly, the frequency of the 'post mortems' she has been wont to conduct after rubbers. Unfortunately this is not the first time that the committee have been forced to reprimand Mrs Borenson and it became inevitable that she should be sent a pair."

She turned to the waiting Daphne and invited her to walk.

Half naked, Daphne did just that. She was obviously familiar with the drill and walked with studied steps the full width of the stage to the left hand side, turned her back to the audience and, with a lissom bend, doubled over, stretching the unlovely pants over her generous haunches. The audience gasped as they saw clearly for the first time, the two scarlet threads that crossed the spreading seat.

The shameful promenade continued. Eve realised that 'walking a pair' had a definite meaning, apart from the obvious wearing of them for twenty-four hours beforehand. There was a specific pattern to the display as Daphne rose, walked with equal formality to the right-hand side of the platform and again, turned away from the audience, bending to grasp her ankles and parade the spectacle of her broad buttocks and the coded announcement of her sentence. Finally she rose and went to stand at the back of the chair, facing away from the audience again, her hands stiffly by her sides.

The secretary was now joined by another woman, slightly younger, athletically built, a brunette with her hair in a tight plait which set off her rather aquiline features. Isobel whispered the information that this was the club President.

"You may remove the drawers," the secretary announced and Daphne's hands went to her waist and her thumbs hooked into the elastic and drew the hated pair off her hips and down her legs. Eve had no doubt though that she was less eager to be rid of the loathsome objects, now that their removal would expose her cringing flesh to the rod that Julia was testing on the air, where it sang with a lugubrious and sullen sound.

Daphne completed the baring of her buttock flesh and hung the drawers on the chair behind which she stood, displaying the delights and decorations of her bountifully beaten bottom to the salivating women below. Eve had become used to seeing its ripely welted expanses, reminiscent of bruised fruit, but Isobel at her side sucked in her breath through clenched teeth.

"Oh wow!" she breathed, "Poor Dee. I thought she was taking this a bit more seriously then expected, but I can see why now. No-one would look forward to paying for a pair with a bottom like that, and she's drawn a double stripe too."

It relieved Eve's mind a little that the apparent insensitive cruelty of these watching women could be touched. They were not totally heartless after all.

Still all around her she could hear low voices, thickened with lust, detailing to each other the state of the exposed flesh, the thickness of the welts, the depth of the bruising, how that tender field, so ploughed and harrowed must feel already, and what might be the effects of a 'butchers' laid into it with the lethal stick that the secretary was exercising on the stage.

If the parlous state of Daphne's bottom had touched at least one of the audience, it made no difference to those charged with the execution of the sentence. With only the briefest glance at the welted withers, Julia announced,

"First thread, six strokes. Bend to the chair."

Well experienced in these matters, Daphne bent over the chair back, her hands reaching down to grasp the seat on either side. The buttock slabs lifted until the bruises sheltering under the jut of the rounded hinds were stretched and exposed, placed where the rod could do its work at their expense. Partly to steady herself, partly because it was expected of her, Daphne shuffled her feet a little further apart, until her thighs had opened and her fat fig could pouch back in the public gaze. The smoky black of the taut nylons cut off the whiteness of the thighs near their tops, leaving the pale rounds of the buttocks blatantly displayed, crossed by the purple spoor of the rod's earlier tracks, the setting punctuated by the fat plum coloured mound of the vulva, where it pouted through the gap at the crotch. It came over Eve in a rush that it was a picture of pure femaleness, which sent an electric rush of heat through her belly. She could almost feel the erotic emanations of the women all around her, as each drank in the carnal scene.

And not just the swelling straining buttock, with its sexual centre, but the woman's straining features as well for, at the back of the shallow stage, directly in front of the bending woman, was set a large plain mirror. In what was obviously a ritual pose, Daphne was bent over the chairback, her hands grasping the edges of the seat, but her head was lifted, so that she stared straight ahead. In this position she could see the rod's descent behind her as it flew to cut her in her most tender flesh. As importantly the audience could watch every expression on her face, from fearful anticipation, to intense shock, as the cane cut in, to a twisted agony of struggle as the after-pain blossomed in her hinds for seconds after each stroke.

Ruthless rattan, toughened by the struggle for survival in the primeval rainforest met tender woman hide; it was no contest. The limber stick rebounded with nothing more than a little extra warmth from the scorched buttocks, the feminine integument blossomed in hot throbbing welt, a searing line of contused flesh, ravaged nerves protesting the crushed capillaries and bruised fat and muscle. Daphne groaned. If this was how it would begin, how could she endure until it ended? With bitten lip she set herself to take the next. One cut at a time, that was the only way to do it. Try to envisage the whole doleful progression, and she would be lost. Fear and despair would undo her and see her try to rise and flee. No she must bite off this rising tide of agony the fresh cut on old bruises had brought and fight it down, before the next could strike.

Watching from the floor, Eve felt heat suffusing her loins as the buttocks leapt under the stroke, and she was already wet before Daphne's face had finished screwing up in the effort to resist the flowing tide of anguish that continued to mount so desperately long afterwards.

With a frightening and implacable steadiness, the secretary laid on each stroke, the score slowly mounting, each delivered with strength and precision. A woman reared on this island not only received much discipline, and learnt to endure it, but often had responsibility delegated to her for servants and growing

girls, not to speak of such social discipline as that being delivered tonight, and a mature woman like Julia could wield a rod with fearful efficiency. Daphne writhed and groaned at every cut, her face betraying her struggle to retain control. Gradually the count rose and she dropped her head momentarily as Julia announced, "Six strokes given. First thread complete."

There was a universal letting out of breath held too long in the intoxicating excitement of the flogging. A buzz of excited conversation swept the hall as women relaxed their clenched thighs, closed gaping mouths that had dropped open in their abandon or even guiltily withdrew hands from rubbed crotches. For two minutes there was a suppressed murmur of comment and analysis of Daphne's performance by women who could all claim some expertise at this sport themselves, then the secretary was calling for order again.

"Second thread, seven strokes. Prepare yourself."

This latter was addressed to Daphne who pulled her drooping frame together, lifting her head again, while the rod passed from Julia to the President. Once more the ordeal was repeated, but this time there was evidence that some damage was being done. Julia had laid all her strokes on the previously thrashed strip at the base of the lacerated buttocks and the already bruised flesh had become swollen and sullen, darkly purple with even darker blotches on the right. For these thick pulsing blisters the new assault proved too much. Daphne might set herself to endure, but her hide could not. At first there was a mere extrusion of tiny bright droplets where the ravaged capillaries discharged through the skin's pores but, as the suffering woman flinched and moaned under the rod's next bite, the skin of one blister parted and a red trickle welled up to run weakly down the back of the right thigh. With the last three strokes came more scarlet droplets, the rod striking raw flesh now in parts. Daphne mewled through clenched teeth, her lips drawn back in an agonised rictus, the audience gazing in wonder at the transfigured face, distorted out of recognition by her pain and effort.

"Discipline complete," the secretary announced, as the President stepped back, leaving Daphne slumped over the chair, her thighs still parted, the fig of her vulva now gaping as a result of her contortions and the engorgement that seemed to follow on the violent stimulus of the surrounding blood supply. For ten minutes she remained in this position while the audience took their leave of each other, each in turn pausing on her way out to contemplate the ruined buttock from close to. When all that wished, and not many declined the opportunity, had had their fill of the naked bruised flesh, Daphne was allowed to straighten painfully and limped off stage to recover her clothes.

"Here she comes," and Eve looked up from the table where she had been sharing a drink with Isobel to see Daphne coming across the hall from the committee room.

Thighs stiff, legs moving with more a waddle than any fluent gait, she approached painfully. Eve got up and drew out a seat.

"Are you joking?" Daphne protested. "Not a chance, But thank you all the same.

Perhaps I can manage to kneel, while you get me a drink. A double and don't worry about the tonic Bel. I'll take it just as it comes."

It was on the tip of Eve's tongue to enquire if this was in the true Eden spirit, or did alcohol contravene the ordinance about doing nothing to mitigate the effects of a beating, but decided it was not the proper time. A couple of drinks later and Isobel made her farewells.

"John's collecting me," she explained. "In fact he's waiting outside now. I think I've stretched his tolerance as far as is safe; I don't want to get a seat like yours when I get back. Besides," she confided, and had the grace to blush,

"you were delightful, Dee darling. I've soaked my pants and I can't wait to get them off and have John perform his proper manly duty. There's rape on the menu tonight, and I'm going to be the one doing it." She delivered a more than

socially conventional kiss to Daphne's bruised and swollen lips and was gone.

"There's gratitude," Daphne groaned in mock hurt, but Eve sensed that she was actually a little flattered at the effect she had induced in Isobel and the rest of the roomful of women.

"Come along," she said, coming round the table, and offering Daphne a shoulder to lean on, as she got down from the chair she was kneeling on, "it's time we got you home."

But it was not so easy as that. When they had got to the car, sitting all alone in a deserted car park, Daphne groaned and said.

"I can't do it. I just couldn't sit on this mess for the best part of an hour and, if I did, I don't think I'd be safe to operate the controls."

"You're right," Eve agreed, "Besides, you've had three very large doubles to my knowledge in the space of twenty minutes, and that after a pretty traumatic experience. There's only one thing for it. I'll drive, you kneel on the back seat."

"Out of the question," Daphne replied, "You haven't registered as a driver yet; you have to take your British licence to the Traffic Department. If you're caught driving without it's a mandatory ten with a penal."

"I'll risk it," Eve declared, "We don't have a choice. Everyone else has left, and I don't fancy sleeping rough. You said yourself there was rain forecast for tonight and we've got about enough clothing between us to cover a good sized mouse."

Blazing bottom won out over prudence. Too hurt to argue any further Daphne allowed herself to be helped into the back, where she got onto all fours across the rear seats, her bum in the air, the jersey dress pulled up so as not to catch on the ruined backside. Eve winced when she saw the state of it, bare of the benefit of underpants, now that the hated drab directoires had been so expensively disposed of. Hot throbbing welts, swollen bruises and a big patch of sticking plaster on the right where someone had provided first aid for the open splits in the skin on her flank.

Even more convinced of the rightness of her decision, the doleful sight of the wounded haunches confirming Daphne's unfitness to take the wheel, Eve slipped into the driver's seat and pulled out of the parking lot. It was not a relaxed journey for either of them; Daphne trying to hold steady against the movement of the car, which set off new waves of fire in her tortured bum with every bump, Eve's attention divided between concern for her friend's dishonourable wounds and the need to keep an eye out for traffic police. Though she had made her offer in the heat of the moment, when she'd have accepted the mandatory ten on the spot, if that was the only way to help Daphne home, more sober consideration left her with a slight sinking feeling in her stomach, and an acute consciousness of her own trim buttocks, pressed without the sanction of authority into the driver's seat. At every turn she expected to see the menacing outline of a cruiser, to hear a siren calling on her to stop and show her papers.

God! Ten with the penal! She hadn't been beaten for ten years now, since she'd left the beloved but rigorous boarding school she'd gone to. That was all long behind her now and she'd almost forgotten how the bite of cane on flesh felt.

Almost but not quite. She remembered enough to produce a slight shaking of the knees, an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, each time they met the lights of other cars. Twice a uniform patrol car passed, once meeting them head-on and passing without pausing, the second time pulling in behind for nearly a mile, before pulling out and sweeping past without a backward glance. Eve let out a breath she had been holding far too long, and tried to still the butterflies that danced in her belly, then suddenly became aware of a wetness between her

thighs. I'm sweating, she thought, and didn't stop to consider why it was not beneath her arms or below her breasts.

It only took a little under an hour to reach the Borenson estate but Eve felt she had driven half way round the world with a dozen police forces chasing her with waving canes. With relief she pulled up in front of the big house and helped Daphne out onto the drive.

"Thank you darling, I could never have managed. Now all I want is my bed and a nice stiff fuck to help me sleep. See you in the morning," and she departed, leaving a quick hot kiss pressed to Eve's parted lips.

Back in her own room, Eve felt she could relax for the first time since she had taken control of the situation at the club and put her buttocks on the line. She stripped, throwing her sweaty shirt into the bin, then pulled her panties out of her crease, where they had crept and flushed at the soaked gusset, flooded from her reaction to the scene at the club and infused by that strange wetness on the road, when the police car had sat on their tail for what had seemed an age. She threw it after the shirt and climbed naked into bed.

The sun was streaming through the curtains again when Eve woke, and the breakfast room deserted. The maid informed her that Gordon had left early for work as usual. Ten minutes later Daphne wandered in, distrait and still limping, but otherwise little the worse for the previous evening's tanning.

"You don't look the wreck I expected," Eve commented.

"A good hard fuck and a solid night's sleep does wonders for a girl," Daphne replied. "You should try it sometime."

"Almost forgotten the feeling; besides I haven't a man at the moment," Eve countered.

"Mmm, that's true. Perhaps I should lend you mine," her friend suggested,

"though I'd want him back after he'd serviced you."

Eve covered a blush by suggesting she was a bit free with her man.

"You may be right," Daphne agreed, "in fact I'd probably be earning myself yet another correction for presumption if there was a man present, but this is just girl talk, and that doesn't count."

They spent the day by the pool again, nursing Daphne's wounds, though she seemed to have recovered her spirits well enough, even if it cost her a groan or two from time to time as she tried to settle herself comfortably.

"It's best to lie on your tum at times like these," she remarked, "but its hard on the elbows after a while."

With the evening came Gordon and cocktails by the pool, warm kisses for both women and a fond pat on the tender rump for Daphne, who squealed, but didn't seem particularly distressed by the show of affection.

Eve was first to dress, and found Gordon walking on the terrace above the pool, drink in hand. He equipped her with similar sustenance then fixed her with a very direct look that found her belly contracting beneath the thin cotton of her dress.

"Daphne has told me how you drove her home last night," he opened without preamble. "You haven't registered your British licence yet, I understand."

"No, not yet. I plan to do it as soon as possible though and Daphne wouldn't have been safe driving. She was quite badly hurt last night you know."

"I do know. I found she needed more than usual attention when she came to bed.

Nearly made me late to the office this morning as it appeared a repeat injection was necessary to complete the cure. Still her sexual needs are not the point.

You could have caused serious trouble if you'd been stopped."

"I was fully aware of that but I was prepared to risk a beating to get Dee back in one piece to her bed and your attentions as you call them."

"Well actually you weren't risking anything, as you would simply have claimed immunity as a visitor, though you would have been asked to leave at once, with no chance of returning. Daphne though would have been punished for allowing it to happen; she is at least nominally, my representative. By the same token I would have been fined for not keeping you women under control."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realise. Anyway I would have paid the money back."

"Again, you miss the point. The money is nothing. It's the damage to my reputation that would hurt. Not able to control his women they'd say. And how about Daphne? Did you really think she should risk her bottom yet again in the state she was in?"

"Of course not," Eve replied indignantly, "what sort of friend do you think I am. Besides," she burst out, carried away by her emotions, "I wouldn't have run away. I'd have stayed and faced the music, even if it did mean taking a caning."

"Would you just," Gordon mused, looking directly at her again, "Have you ever been caned, young lady?"

Eve's indignation boiled over; young lady indeed!

"If you must know, I have. I attended a very strict school, where the rod was well used, and I know just what it is like. We could take our licks there I can tell you."

"Could you still, I wonder? Still the question's academic; you'd never be called upon to prove the point. Just please think in future before you let someone who has to live by the rules here, risk getting into trouble with the law."

Thankfully Eve spotted Daphne coming to join them and was able to avoid any need to reply, and the subject was dropped. After dinner, which Daphne took, by special favour, kneeling on a padded stool, Gordon took himself off to his study, saying he had some papers he wanted to look at, and the two women settled with the latest magazines he had brought out from the capital that evening. Eve found her attention wandering from the fashion page she had started, reverting time and again to Gordon's 'carpeting' before dinner, and his accusation that she had risked nothing for herself, only for her friends. She laid down the glossy pages and excused herself.

Gordon's study door was in the old style, heavy dark oak, all a man's study should be. It echoed dully to her knock and its thickness barely allowed her to hear his 'come in'. Closing it behind her, she leaned back against it and faced him across his desk.

"I've been thinking about what you said before dinner," she said, after clearing the lump that seemed to be constricting her throat, "I wouldn't have taken the easy way out, if we'd been caught. I'd have stayed and taken my punishment. You don't believe me, I can see, but I'm here to prove it."

"And how are you going to do that?" he asked, one eyebrow raised in scepticism.

Like a swimmer about to dive into dark cold water, she took a deep breath.

"I expect you keep a cane in here," she said.

"You mean?"

"I mean I'll take a caning from you to show you I meant it. Also, perhaps it might just be deserved, "she added dropping her eyes from his.

"And how many did you have in mind?"

That threw her. She hadn't thought that far when making her precipitous decision.

"Er, um," she stumbled. "We generally got six of the best at school."

"It would have been ten with a penal, if you'd got caught," Gordon reminded her,

"will you settle for eight?"

She nodded dumbly, not trusting herself to speak.

"It'll have to be on the bare," he said.

For reply she reached under the dress, pulling the flimsy nylon of her panties down past her knees and balanced on each leg in turn while she slipped them off and stood there holding them out as if offering them to him.

He laughed grimly.

"I don't think I need those just now, " he said, "just put them on the desk and come and stand over here."

'Here' was a mat in front of a wall cupboard from which he was extracting a menacing length of yellow rattan that had her buttocks clenching before she had even bared them.

Her heart was pounding as she stood on the spot prescribed and then bent at his command to grasp her ankles where the straps of her evening sandals wrapped around their slimness. The short cotton dress rode up to her thighs and was assisted on its way by the cane tip, which lifted it over her hips onto the small of her back, the swelling fullness of her firm bottom cheeks ensuring that it lay there without falling back.

The air was cool on her skin, emphasising her nudity and her exposure, reminding her of moments of equal fear and anticipation in Miss Fletcher's study. There was something else this time, though, a man's gaze. She was suddenly acutely aware of her plumpness between her thighs, the fatty lips so cool and moist. Oh no. She flushed an even deeper red. What was happening to her? She was flooding there, thinking of Gordon's eyes upon her. She was sure he must be able to see the wetness as dewdrops glistening on the curling strands that fringed her fig.

Then all thoughts of modesty and shame disappeared in a sheet of flame, blasted from her mind as the rod bit deep into the stretched integument of her lower buttock. She had been determined to take her punishment in dignified silence but the shock forced a strangled squeal from her open mouth. She clamped it shut, determined nothing more would escape her, and tried to deal with the fire in her bottom. It wasn't easy. It was years since she'd indulged in this sport and she was woefully out of practice. Besides, that brute of a rod looked twice as heavy as the school canes she'd known before. Her grip tightened until her ankles went white as she set herself for the next.

Again the rod sang on its path to her bent bum, but this time she was ready, or as ready as a girl can be for such stroke play. It flamed as hotly in her hinds as the first, but she only gasped, then hissed through clenched teeth as the real pain flowed in a second later. Gordon let her savour the full flavour of the stroke, watching the writhing cheeks to gauge her progress before cutting in again.

He was working her low, as all good beatings should be, three strokes placed a finger's width apart until they defined a band no more than two inches wide just above where the stretched skin still just defined a crease to separate thigh from bottom proper, the optimum 'sitzplas' of the classic caning, a spot that would respond for days to the pressure of the wearer's body when she sat, reminding her of her sins and, as importantly, of her redemption.

But that was still to come, as were a fistful more of these searching corrections. Four followed in regular sequence, Eve puffing and blowing in her concentration, her face beet red, her knees trembling, but after five she heard Gordon's voice growl behind her.

"You're clenching," he accused. "I don't intend to continue until you relax those cheeks. The cane does its best work on a loose seat and I won't have you trying to get out of it."

He'd watched the well fleshed rear lifting to the rod, the welts springing up, thickening darkening, but she was tightening. Sometimes even the fat fig could scarcely appear, so tightly was she clenching her thighs. It was generally held that a woman felt it more if her flesh was slack. Besides, it encouraged self-control if she was made to resist the urge to tense her muscles, and was made to leave them loose for the rod

Eve groaned, but would not be defeated. Gordon watched in admiration as the tight cheeks relaxed and the exquisite purple fig of her vulva sprang into full view again, an exposure not lost on the bending woman whose body was now a frenzy of feeling, shame, pain and, oh God! a hotness in her belly that joined to a flooding warmth in her womb. She set her jaw as tightly as, previously, she had been clenching her buttocks and prayed for it to be over. Gordon whipped the rod twice more directly into the hot raised band of plum coloured bruise that lay accurately and level across the quivering seat then paused again.

"I'm not going to count that stroke," he said. "You're not holding straight."

Indeed she wasn't. Up on her left toe tip, her right knee a little bent, she had dropped her right hip to turn the thick pulsing contusions on her flank away from the rod. She whimpered but forced her unwilling buttocks to straighten and braced back her knees, to take the rod with straight legs and level buttocks, the right flank exposed again for the humming rod tip to wrap around and burrow deep. Gordon watched in admiration. He had intended to use this opportunity to see if the girl was made of the right stuff and was fully satisfied she was a real woman. If not yet ready for the Eden life, certainly trainable. Calmly he lashed the rod into the offered hinds, wrapping it round the aching flank.

Whining, Eve held her position, though the legs quivered, the knees fretting together in distress. He let her absorb the cut and struck for the last time, once more aiming for the low set band of bruise, then stepped back. He waited for a count of five, watching the ripples in her thigh muscles as she fought to hold still, then ordered, "Get up."

She rose stiffly, her hands seeming to have difficulty releasing her ankles, then turned to face him, as the dress fell back over her beaten hinds.

"Thank you," she whispered hoarsely, and stumbled towards the door.

"Haven't you forgotten something?" he asked, using the rod like a lecturer's pointer to indicate the discarded knickers lying on his desk, "I don't think Daphne would like me keeping your pants as a souvenir."

She grabbed the scrap of feminine underwear and fled.

Daphne was lying on her left side in a nest of heaped soft cushions to favour her own wounded right flank. She looked up to see Eve coming towards her from the far end of the long library. She was walking like a woman does when she has been caned; the back a little stiff, the legs very straight, swinging in small

outward arcs from the hip, without bending the knee, the buttocks clenching as if to try and squeeze out the fiery bite still smarting in them. Later she will still walk in the same style, but clenching to remind herself, deliciously, of the extraordinary level of living she had experienced under the rod, and the quiet glow of satisfaction that would fill her; a sense of being 100 per cent woman.

The irony was, Daphne thought, that she would be the last one to know it. Any woman on the island would recognise the walk, and the feelings behind it, even without the forgotten knickers still grasped in her unconscious hand. Ah well, she'd come to understand eventually. She was sure she had not underestimated her friend's needs and potential.

"Are those a present for me, Darling?" she asked, looking directly at the scrunched panties. "Or just a souvenir of something?"

Eve looked down at the scrap of fabric in her hand as if she had seen it for the first time.

"Oh!" she blurted, "Jeeze! I'd forgotten I'd got them."

"Do I gather you've been indulging in some post prandial exercise with my husband? I hope you haven't tired him too much. I'll be needing him myself soon."

"You needn't worry, it's only his strong right arm. I'm sure he can give you adequate attention without it."

"You mean to say he gave you a licking and then didn't follow up with some consolation. How mean of him. How many incidentally and why?"

Eve explained. "I settled for eight but it became nine. He said I was twisting away from the rod."

"Very proper; it should always be worse than you think. Still nine with any of Gordon's rods can't have been a picnic. Let's have a look!"

With her panties already in her hand it didn't take much to bare the seat of learning. Daphne whistled as the hot throbbing welts came into view. Ten minutes into their ripening they had matured in height and in the depth of their hue, blue purple ropes that merged in places to a single hot raised mass while there was a thin sprinkling of red speckles on the thumb-sized swellings left by the rod's tip on her flank.

"My he did make it a good one," Daphne commented, her eyes open in wonder, "I can see he meant to find out what your limits were."

"It certainly seemed like it from my end," Eve admitted ruefully, "and I think he succeeded. I couldn't have gone even one more, whatever the cost."

"So you say darling, but you've yet to learn what we women can take out here.

Wait until you've been to a GOD whipping, or seen how they treat offenders in the courts or the prison camp."

"GOD whippings! What on earth are they?"

"The Society for Good Order and Discipline. Naturally discipline of women is meant and, equally naturally, it's an all male committee. You'll find out soon enough I think. Gordon has just been appointed to it and I believe they've something planned soon. Anyway there are more urgent things to consider, such as how are we going to treat those bruises on your bottom and the tension I can see in you face. A little TLC is called for, I think. I recommend some balm for the bruises and as for the tension, well let's see if I can think of something once

you're lying on my bed."

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