Spank: The Improbable Adventures of George Aloysius Brown (3 page)

The door to his quarters opened to a comfortable carpeted living room where a pair of overstuffed leather armchairs framed a fireplace. On the mantel were photos, his parents, I presumed, and one of R.C. in army uniform, his arm around the shoulders of a buddy, photographed against a rugged mountain backdrop that was stark, almost lunar,
in its abject desolation. To my surprise he was dressed in a monk
'
s robe.
It fitted with the music, Gregorian chants.

I sat chastely in one of the armchairs, my hands in my lap, like I was at a job interview or something. He poured a glass of white wine for himself and one for me that he offered with the deference of a priest at the high altar. I took it. Then he sat in the chair across from me, smiled and raised his glass.

"
Nice ass.
"

I laughed, we both did, the tension broken.

"
Why, thank you, sir,
"
I said.
"
But this wasn
'
t exactly what I had imagined during my last week at school.
"

"
Nor I,
"
he said.
"
But before you become consumed with your own cleverness, you should know I have resigned as headmaster of
Chiltern Hills
Academy
, effective tomorrow, to take a senior position in counter-intelligence with a government border security agency in
Hong Kong
. The board of governors here has reluctantly accepted my resignation and will be making a formal announcement on Sunday at which time my successor will be named. By then I will be 30,000 feet somewhere over the
South China Sea
. In any event, I don
'
t imagine you
'
ll be discussing this with your parents.
"

I smiled and shook my head. Nanny Burton, maybe.

"
Is that thing a replica?
"

"
Apart from the color, yes,
"
he allowed.
"
Shockingly narcissistic and self-indulgent, don
'
t you think so? Also made in
Dakar
. A plaster cast, a skilled glassblower, simple really, but quite exquisite. My inspiration was the work of a British artist who made plaster casts of hundreds of vaginas and exhibited them in a montage at a leading
London
art gallery. I didn
'
t see the exhibition. I only read about it. Mine has been exhibited only to you.
"

I let that go and took a sip of wine.
"
Tell me about
Iraq
. They say you were awarded a medal.
"

The memory seemed to trouble him. His expression darkened.

"
The citation says that while under enemy fire I rescued a soldier who had been injured by a roadside bomb, dragging him to safety while returning fire and successfully getting the rest of us the hell out of there without loss of life. The reality was that I acted instinctively, more out of self-preservation than anything and I can barely remember what happened.

"
The horror of the war for me was that I was personally responsible for the deaths of eight women and children during a house-to-house search for enemy insurgents in a remote village near the Kurdish border. It was night, as black as hell. As we entered one building on a tip-off, yelling in the local lingo for everyone to get down on the floor, I heard a shot – or thought I did – and ordered my men to open fire. When the dust cleared there were bodies everywhere, women and children piled like rags.
Sometimes in these situations you have a fraction of a second to make a decision that might save your life or the lives of those you lead. This, tragically, was one of them. There was an internal army investigation, of course, in which I was totally exonerated. In war it
'
s known as collateral damage. There
'
s another term you may have heard, PTSD.
"

I recognized the acronym. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"
That
'
s why I left the army. I never recovered. I still have nightmares, what was it I heard that panicked me, a TV, a child
'
s toy? What might I have done differently?
"

"
It wasn
'
t your fault. You said it was dark. It was a dangerous mission.
"

"
Thank you for that. But in my heart I know I killed eight innocent people five of them children.
"

He topped up our glasses.

"
What you did could have ended very badly for you. What made you think I would go along with it?
"

"
I don
'
t know. I guessed that when given the opportunity you probably couldn
'
t resist. I wanted it desperately. Being spanked by an authority figure is something I have fantasized about since puberty.
"

Just talking about it aroused me.

"
Erotic discipline has been around a long time. What do you know about its history?
"

"
Not much. I
'
ve read a couple of articles. It
'
s not part of the curriculum here.
But I thought
Bolero
was a nice touch.
"

We laughed, feeling comfortable together.

He stood up and from a filing cabinet drawer he produced a cane, property of the
Chiltern Hills
Academy
, he said, now a museum piece, a classic of its day, probably dating from the
'
50s.
He held the crook in his right hand and the tip in his left, showing me its flexibility. His face was like a mask.

I felt afraid. I do not deny that the sight of it excited me, but from deep within there was a warning voice. I had been spanked by him and I had tasted the strap, but this?

"
No,
"
I said.
"
I don
'
t want it.
"
This had already gone too far. I stood to leave. He made no attempt to stop me, instead he handed the cane to me.

"
You misunderstand me, Miss Jones. Your desire to be disciplined has been fulfilled. Now you will punish me. Twelve strokes. As I have told you, I have much to atone for.
"

I nodded. I felt suddenly empowered. I was an actor in a theatrical drama and it was my time now to take center stage. He turned up the volume filling the room with music of the monasteries that was old during Roman times and if there is a more pure and beautiful melding of male voices I have yet to hear it. Holding the cane lightly in my right hand, I gestured for him to remove his robe and to bend over the chair.
When he had done so, it was my turn to marvel.
He was sculptured like a Greek god. I noted that he was not sexually excited, but I was. I took up a position alongside him. I gave him six hard strokes, then six more, which he took soundlessly. I took a deep breath, put down the cane and turned away, feeling suddenly ashamed and emotionally drained.

Then I left without a word. Quietly, I closed the door behind me, out of his study, out of his life. I would never see him again, or so I thought.

Pem Surjani settles over her husband's knee with a small sigh of satisfaction. There is no hurry. He will keep her waiting. He always does. Time is on her side now. He places one hand on the small of her back as if holding her captive and with the other he strokes her thighs and buttocks. She stretches luxuriously, arching her back for him. Nothing is said. Each has a part to play in the early morning drama now reaching its climax behind slatted wooden shutters. The anticipation is exquisite. Sensing he is about to begin, she reaches behind to hold him, her slender fingers closing gently around it. The heat, its animal hardness, causes her a sudden intake of breath. No matter how often he spanks her, it excites her as if it were the first time. She gasps and moves to the rhythm. When her buttocks are red and stinging she straddles him and they make love. It always ends in making love. Afterwards, for a long sweet while they lay together hand-in-hand, utterly consumed. Then she showers, dresses, makes a hurried phone call to the medical clinic where she is manager of patient services and propels herself into the city
'
s morning commute.
For his part, George Aloysius Brown pours himself a cup of tea and settles back into bed with his copy of
The
Times.

In the bedroom mirror he contemplates the image of a short, balding, middle-aged man. He pulls in his belly and flexes his muscles. At high school he had played wing for the rugby team and had run the first leg in the sprint relay.
"
You've still got it, mate,
"
he tells his mirror image although in truth he knows he doesn't. Not like his wife, still lissome and beautiful at 39, with almond shaped eyes and long dark lashes. Pem Surjani is Balinese. She grew up in the resort town of
Kuta
Beach with her widowed mother who works as a hotel cleaner, helping to look after her twin sisters who are ten years younger. Life was a struggle, but the family never thought of themselves as poor. When Pem got a job as a trainee flight attendant for Indonesian Airways they were happy for her, happy that she would see the world, be somebody. It had not occurred to them she would earn more in a week than they normally saw in a month. Her sisters adored her, longed to be like her. The first time Pem left home for the airport proudly wearing her uniform they had hugged her and cried.
"
Don't be silly,
"
she chided them.
"
I'll be back on Thursday. Look after your mother and don't forget to help with the chores.
"

Seven years later when she married George and quit the airline she joked that now she has only one person to look after. She still contributes monthly to the family income. Not only is she loving, she is sweet-natured, a good cook and although she made it clear to him that having children would not be part of their future, her sexual appetite is voracious. Occasionally on Fridays after work when she joins him at the pub for a soda and angostura bitters, his friends are always pleased to see her and privately they agree that George is a lucky man. But if Pem were asked she would insist that she is the lucky one. Beyond the prospect of a comfortable life in
London
and a healthy financial future that marriage provided, she loves him for himself, the gentle way about him, his kindness, his wry sense of humor. He makes her laugh.

And despite his apparent middle-class conservatism that had led at age 23 to an entry-level job in the recycling department of Putney & District municipality and eventually, at aged 40, to the position of manager and a corner office in an expansive glass edifice on the south side of the Thames, George Aloysius Brown, a man ten years hers senior, proved to be an eager and responsive lover. They had first met on a flight to
Kuala Lumpur
where he was attending a conference of the International Association of Municipal Government Authorities. They had chatted briefly and he had given her his card. To Pem, he seemed the epitome of an English gentleman, comfortably off, she imagined, with a handsome salary, seven weeks holiday and an indexed pension. She phoned him next time she was in
London
and they started seeing each other whenever she stopped over. And although their relationship at that time had not included making love, she felt they were ready to do so. It was time to move things forward.

And so on a late August night about 10 p.m., six months after they met, George's phone rang. It was Pem. She had just got into Heathrow, could she come over? George took a deep breath and glanced at the clock on the mantel. My guess is she's planning to stay the night, he told himself.
"
Sure you can,
"
he replied casually, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. And when forty minutes later she appeared at his door still in uniform, pulling her little suitcase behind her, it was clear she would be in no hurry to leave. She kissed him tenderly allowing her hand to brush casually against him. She flopped on the sofa in apparent exhaustion, kicking off her shoes and they sat together sipping wine, in the background a sixties station playing love songs.

"
Tough day at the office?
"
George asked, slipping his hand into hers.

"
Long day,
"
she replied
"
Head winds most of the way. Forty minutes late into Heathrow.
"

"
Was the flight full?
"