Blushing at Both Ends (16 page)

It took him a while to find the goatherd's hut. When he sighted it, he tethered his horse at a distance and approached quietly on foot. As he drew near he heard the sound of carefree girlish laughter, full of joy and mischief.

‘If I didn't know better,' he thought to himself, ‘I would say that was my daughter's voice. But she has never laughed like that in her life.'

Creeping up to the hut, he peered in through the window. Garth sat at table facing the window, a loaf and cheese before him. Opposite him sat a tousle-haired girl with a fine figure, wearing simple clothes and laughing merrily. As he watched, she half-turned and he glimpsed her face. The King gasped. The girl's cheek was flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkled with naughtiness.

‘So, you dare spurn my charms, Sir Garth?' she demanded mock-haughtily.

The goatherd grinned. ‘My sweet,' he replied, ‘I would dearly love to bed you this very minute. But I gave my word. Once the week is up, then if you wish I'll be happy to acquaint you with another wand of mine, and show you what magic I can work with it. But until then I keep my word, no matter how you tease.'

‘What if I release you from your promise?' asked the girl.

‘You cannot. I gave it to your father, not to you.'

‘And if I order you, on Royal Command?'

Garth half-rose, threatening her playfully. ‘You know what happens to young ladies who issue Royal Commands in this hut, my girl.'

Quick as a flash the girl grabbed a spatula from the table and tossed it through the window, just missing the King's nose. ‘Hah!' she cried. ‘Now you can't spank me! Your wand is gone!'

Grinning, Garth made a grab at her. ‘Oho, my sweet, I don't need my wand to spank your bottom soundly.' He laughed. ‘My hands too have warming magic in them, as you will soon learn.'

‘You must catch me first, Sir Bully!' cried the girl. After dodging round the table, she made a dash for the door with Garth in close pursuit.

The King dived hastily behind a woodpile as the pair shot out the door. The girl had a few yards' lead until, with a shriek, she tripped over a tether. In a trice Garth was on her. Chuckling exultantly, he scooped her up, carried her to a nearby tree-stump and sat down, draping her face-down across his lap. She yelped and giggled, beating on his legs with her fists.

The King watched in amazement. Could this be his daughter, the cool conceited Princess Snow White, so remote and forbidding? This carefree laughing girl with tousled hair, rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes? Now she was giggling and squealing as the goatherd flipped up her skirt to reveal long legs, shapely thighs and a rounded and very spankable bare bottom.

‘Now, young lady,' said Garth, caressing the soft mounds, ‘you'll learn that I can work magic just with my hands. For once again I shall bring a blush to these pretty cheeks, and swiftly transform you from Snow White to Rose Red!' So saying, he proceeded to administer a sound smacking to her squirming rump.

‘Oww!' she cried, wriggling as her bottom turned a fetching pink. ‘Beast! Stop it! Help! How dare you treat a princess so, sir? Oooh! Owww! I shall have you executed for treasonable assault upon a royal – yee-owww! – bottom!'

‘
Will
you now?' said Garth, spanking her lustily. ‘Then as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb! If this must be the last spanking I give you, sweet lady, I'll see to it that your royal bottom is most royally toasted!'

‘Oww, no, stop! I command you!
Owww!
I am the Princess Snow White! Unhand my – owww! – bottom this instant! Brute! Help!'

‘Not any more you're not, my lady,' retorted Garth, pausing to stroke the radiant cushions beneath his hand, ‘for all the world knows that Snow White is cold and pale and disdainful, and has never yet been warmed by any man. You, however, are the Princess Rose Red, as these soft blushing cheeks plainly show, who has been well warmed these past three days, and is even now being warmed again. Aye, and shall be many a time to come, if I have aught to do with it.'

So saying, he happily renewed his assault on the girl's sweet rearward curves, settling in for a good long leisurely spanking. She for her part squealed and kicked and squirmed, yelping with pain and excitement, and pleading most unconvincingly for mercy.

The King crept quietly away, retrieved his horse and rode off, wondering. His sword thumped at his side. He had come resolved to defend his daughter from harm, even at the cost of his own life. Yet had he not seen her pursued and captured, half-denuded and soundly smacked – and made not a move to intervene?

The King shook his white old head. He had always thought himself a good father, dedicated to his daughter's happiness, and leaving no paternal duty unfulfilled. But now it occurred to him that there had, perhaps, been one crucial omission . . .

Three days later, punctual to the hour, Garth returned the Princess to the palace. She stood before the Court in the simple peasant dress she had worn in Garth's hut. There was a smile on her lips, and her eyes that formerly
glinted
like green ice now sparkled like emeralds. Her long dark hair was tousled and there was a flush of secret pleasure on her cheek.

‘I return your daughter the Princess, Sir King,' said Garth politely. ‘As I promised you, and as she herself will tell you, she is still as virgin for me as when she left your palace.'

‘Ah,' said the King. ‘Quite so. But tell me – have you, ah, warmed her as you undertook to do?'

‘Perhaps you should ask her that,' suggested Garth.

‘Well, my dear daughter,' said the King, somewhat flustered, ‘tell us, then. Has this young man found how to warm you?'

The Princess almost laughed. ‘Oh yes,' she said, ‘indeed he has. He has warmed me lovingly and often. There has not been a day this past week when he has not warmed me. Surely no man could warm me better than Garth has done. As you may tell –' she paused, and flashed Garth a secret smile ‘– from the roses in my cheeks.'

‘Indeed,' said the King, who seemed to be struggling with some private recollection. ‘Then – do you love him?'

‘Oh yes,' said Snow White, taking Garth's right hand and kissing it gently on the palm.

‘And would you marry him?'

A long rich flush of colour flowed into the Princess's cheeks. ‘Oh, yes,' she said, ‘willingly.'

The cheer that followed could be heard outside in the city streets. And when the cause of it was known, the whole city cheered so loud that, far away on the edge of the forest, Garth's goats raised their heads and gazed in surprise at the distant sound.

A week later, Garth and the Princess were married. To the general surprise, she refused to be married as Princess Snow White. ‘A married woman,' she said, ‘often changes her name, and so shall I. Henceforth I
shall
be known as Princess Rose Red. This as tribute,' she added with a pretty blush, ‘to the magic worked upon me by the love of my dear Garth.'

For his part Garth declined to be crowned King. ‘While you live, sir,' he told his father-in-law, ‘there can be but one King, and you are he. In any case, from goatherd to King in a single week is too great a leap for any man. So, if you please, I shall be crowned Prince Garth, and serve as your Regent with my beloved wife. And, if in the fullness of time the rank of King should fall vacant, that will be soon enough for me.'

‘But at least,' asked the Court Herald anxiously, ‘you will take a coat-of-arms, my Prince?'

‘Why yes,' said Garth, ‘that I think I may do. Saving your expertise, my friend, I have some suggestions.'

‘Oh,' said the Herald as Garth sketched on a parchment. ‘I see. It is, if your Royal Highness will excuse my saying so, somewhat irregular. I don't recall ever seeing that particular device on an escutcheon before.'

‘Nonetheless,' said Prince Garth, ‘that is my wish.'

And so it was that the House of Garth ever afterwards bore this proud armature: Between two goats rampant, on a field
blanc neige
, a spatula
or
over two
fesses rouges
. Motto:
Qui ayme bien, chastie bien
–a precept the descendants of that house observe faithfully to this very day.

10

Emma
– The Lost Version

THE CURRENT VOGUE
for Jane Austen has fuelled speculation about her sexuality. In some quarters it's been suggested that she was lesbian. The jury's still out on that one; but recent research by the tireless investigators of the Camden Institute for Disciplinary Studies has uncovered startling evidence that Jane may have been into spanking.

Emma Woodhouse, lovely, self-willed and incurably meddlesome, is Jane Austen's most charming and infuriating heroine. More than one reader must have wished that Mr Knightley, Emma's friend, mentor and – in the end – bridegroom, had taken the spoilt young lady across his knee and administered the spanking she so richly deserved. Now, thanks to Dr Kemp's researches, it's revealed that in the newly unearthed original version of
Emma
, he did just that. More than once, too. We're proud to present a world exclusive: the first-ever publication of excerpts from
Emma – the Spanking Version
.

Emma Woodhouse has taken under her wing Harriet Smith, a young woman of humble origins, and has nipped in the bud an incipient romance between her and a young farmer, Robert Martin. Emma believes her protégée destined for higher social rank than that of a farmer's
wife
. Mr Knightley berates her for her snobbish interference
.

‘We think so very differently on this point, Mr Knightley,' replied Emma, ‘that there can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more angry. In any case, Harriet has refused Robert Martin, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any second application. As to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to say that I might not have influenced her a little; but I assure you there was very little for me or for anybody to do. I imagine that, before she had seen anybody superior, she might tolerate him. But the case is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are; and nothing but a gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet.'

‘Nonsense, arrant nonsense, as ever was talked!' cried Mr Knightley. ‘Robert Martin's manners have sense, sincerity and good humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than Harriet Smith could understand.'

Emma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned. She did not repent what she had done; she still thought herself a better judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be; but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgement in general, which made her dislike having it so loudly against her. Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence. Mr Knightley was thinking. At last he expressed the results of his thoughts in these words: ‘Emma, we are old friends, and I have always availed myself of the privilege of an old friend to speak frankly to you. At the risk of offending you, I must now test that privilege to the utmost.'

His aspect was so serious that Emma could not help but laugh and disclaim all risk of offence.

He continued: ‘Very well, then. Emma, I have known you from an infant. You have many good qualities
which
endear you to me, and to all your friends. But, if you have one great fault, it is that you will have your own way. In your mother you lost the only person able to cope with you. Since you were twelve you have been mistress of the house. In consequence you are – forgive me – a lovely, charming, intelligent but badly spoilt young lady.'

As he spoke, Mr Knightley fixed her with a glance at once more grave and more intimate than any she had known from him. She tried to smile and respond playfully. But at the intensity of his gaze she found herself overcome by confusion, and she remained silent as he proceeded.

‘Were your father of a more decided nature, I doubt I should need to say these words. But, in this matter of Harriet Smith, Emma, your passion for match-making, and your disregard of any view but your own, have caused serious mischief. Emma, I say this for your own good and that of all around you. If you do not cease this wilful meddling, I shall feel constrained to treat you as the spoilt young woman you are, and requite you fittingly; namely, by taking you across my knee and giving you a sound spanking. Believe me, Emma, I mean what I say. Good morning to you.'

He rose and walked off abruptly, leaving Emma in a state of anger and mortification. She could scarcely credit that he had spoken to her in such terms. No one had chastised her since she was a child, and it was surely not conceivable that a gentleman like Mr Knightley would even consider such an outrage on her person. Yet she had never known him to speak idly.

Emma's agitation was increased by the fact that, at the moment Mr Knightley had talked of spanking her, she had experienced a palpable thrill in which fear and excitement were strangely mixed. At this memory, to her great vexation, she found herself bursting into tears.

* * *

At a picnic organised by Emma on Box Hill (a Surrey beauty spot), she wilfully insults an old friend, the middle-aged Miss Bates, by a thoughtless joke. This and other incidents sour the occasion, and Emma is relieved when the party breaks up
.

Such another scheme, composed of so many ill-assorted people, she hoped never to be betrayed into again. Rather than wait for her carriage, she walked a little aside beyond a thicket, seeking solitude. In a few moments the voices and the bustle had faded behind her, and she conceived herself quite alone. But to her surprise, rounding a bush, she came upon Mr Knightley. It was evident that he had expressly made to intercept her, and his visage boded no agreeable speech.

‘Emma,' said he without preamble, ‘I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age and situation? Emma, I had not thought it possible.'