Taught to Serve (11 page)

“Preparation,” blurted out Casey with a yelp as he smacked one buttock particularly hard.

“Go on,” said Rob.

“Check my supplies every day!” she screeched as he landed an especially mean whack.

“Keep a list of what is needed,” she howled, with tears forming in her eyes. “Check my equipment regularly. Replenish weekly!”

The report rained down with swift flicks of Rob’s wrist, turning her wriggling behind into a patchwork of various shades of pink and red. The cover she had purchased was robust and well suited to the task. By the end, the report would be remarkably intact—if a little curved in shape.

“Well done, Casey, you’re doing good,” said Rob, rubbing the heat about her inflamed cheeks.

“Maintenance is important, sir!” she rasped as he continued spanking, unabated by his compliment.

“It is, Casey,” said Rob carefully. “Very important, and I take it seriously. So should you.”

“I will, sir, I promise. I will keep you well supplied with everything you need. Nothing will run out again,” she sobbed, wishing he would stop. Out of the corner of her eye, the visitor watched the act of discipline with folded arms and a nearly impassive face. The man did not spring to her rescue, criticise Rob, or even wince in sympathy. His eyes barely blinked as she jumped with the impact of each blow. When Casey began to whimper loudly, she was convinced the man’s eyes were smiling at her.

At first, Casey had felt ashamed. To be hauled over the coals and spanked by her employer and boyfriend in the presence of a stranger was extremely humiliating. However, when the visitor’s eyes twinkled and the corner of his lips curled fractionally upwards, she had the customary tingle between her legs. Horrified at the way her body seemed to react to the voyeur in their midst, she averted her eyes and concentrated on the threads in the carpet. It did not work. She was being observed closely and intimately by a man twice her age. When Rob occasionally ran a finger over her marks, it made her ripple with butterflies in her stomach, and she reached a conclusion; she liked being watched.

The spanking finished, and for a few moments Casey lay across his lap, breathing deeply as he slowly released his restraining grip on her wrist. She slipped down onto her knees by him, clutching her throbbing bottom.

“You can go now, Casey,” said Rob.

“Yes, sir,” she sniffed.

Rob wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s done, Casey. Don’t worry, you’ve learnt your lesson. Why not make us all a nice cup of tea. Find some cake, too.”

“Yes, sir,” said Casey, rising up. “I will.”

* * *

Rob watched as she shuffled out of the room, her hand up her skirt as she frantically rubbed her bottom. As the door shut behind her, he turned to his friend and smiled. “I’m very pleased with how things are going.”

“Yes, I can see,” said the grey haired man. “You’ve got a lovely girl, Rob. She’s definitely worth the effort.”

“I know,” said Rob. “Thanks for all your advice. I’m grateful. I thought you might enjoy watching the progress.”

“I have. It’s been… interesting.” The other man grinned subtly. “Is she really that disorganised?”

“Disorganised? No. Unobservant? Some times. After all, the things she bought today were all there yesterday,” said Rob mischievously.

“Sorry?” asked the man.

Rob rose and went to the cupboard in the corner of his room. He flung open the doors, and there on the bottom shelf was a pile of printer paper, toner cartridges, and report covers. “See, she really needs to pay better attention, don’t you think, Mac?”

Mac grinned from ear to ear. Rob had preparation down to a fine art.

Casey was in turmoil, a neurotic state of mind brought about by the requirement, from time to time, to visit her parents. She had long ago given up on the notion that a child blessed with the genetic material of each of her parents should, when blended into its own genetic soup, have a personality that mirrored its parents. Casey did not. There was nothing remotely similar that triggered a connection between herself and her parentage—so much so that it took a furtive sneak at her birth certificate to convince herself she was their real daughter.

The reason for her visit was sitting in the car next to her. When she told her parents she had a job working for Mr Tolchard, their response was one of delight, since any employment was a blessing. However, when she announced she had moved into Mr Tolchard’s house and called him Rob, she was greeted with a different response.

“We haven’t even met the man!” blurted out her mother.

Rob agreed it had to be rectified. Casey’s attempts at procrastination were dismissed, and they arranged an appointment at her parents’ house. On the drive there, Rob had to fold his lean body like origami to fit inside Casey’s Mini. To Casey’s relief, he did not comment on her abrupt gear changes, nor on her tendency to slam on her brakes at the last minute, nor on her oblique references to other equally inept road users. Brushing down his trousers, he had carefully sealed his lips.

He was not wearing a suit, and Casey was relieved he had dressed down for the occasion of their visit, though dressing down did not prevent Rob from looking smart or well-manicured in appearance. His casual clothing was so smart, that she had huffed at her own jeans and garish t-shirt and had gone back to change into a knee length skirt and unadorned top. She had learnt how to please Rob without him commenting.

Perched on the edge of a sofa, they drank tea out of mismatched mugs. Casey grimaced, and her face became more alarmed when her mother appeared with a packet of rich tea biscuits, tore open the wrapping and offered them around. As they nibbled, the four of them tried hard to find common ground for conversations. Rob’s profession brought admiration but no understanding. To Casey’s parents, lawyers stood in courts with wigs and spoke a great deal. It was lost on them that many sat all day reading and writing and never appeared in courts.

“Commercial law, mum,” explained Casey. “Contracts, agreements, those kind of things.”

“I know, dear,” said her mother.

Her father raised his passion for football. Rob smiled and said he preferred cricket, which did for a brief period sustain some conversation between her father and Rob. Where Rob obtained his knowledge of the sport was lost on Casey, who had never seen him watch it on television.

The awkwardness seemed to weigh heavily on Casey, and she found she could not help the descent into overt put-downs.

“Mum! Rob doesn’t want to know how many cakes you bake for the church fete.” The tone of her voice was on the edge of exasperation and appeared to become worse with every passing minute. She rolled eyes up at the Artex ceiling, then back down to the woven threads of colour at her feet. The carpet was the same one from her childhood days, and it seemed to project remarkable ugliness up towards her eyes. Rob’s house had antique wooden floors throughout, with Axminster rugs strategically placed for comfort. Casey’s ears pricked up when she heard pigtails being mentioned.

“Please don’t tell him about my school days,” said Casey with indignation.

“Why not?” asked her father. “They were the best years of your life.”

“Were they?” snapped Casey.

* * *

Rob took it all in his stride. He was not immune to families and their peculiarities. His own parents were dead, though he stayed close to his sister and made a point of speaking to her every week on the telephone. If he was shuffling his feet slightly, it was because of Casey’s attitude. Seated in the rather dim and cramped front room of an old cottage, he could not deny his own accommodation was vastly superior. It saddened Rob to see his girlfriend embarrassed by her humble origins, to watch her glare annoyance at her mother and to listen to her interrupt her father’s attempt to speak about his job in the local council offices.

When it was time to go, he thanked them each for their time and hoped they would come to visit next time.

“Oh, yes,” said Casey eagerly. “Just wait to see where I live now.”

Rob said nothing about her smug expression as he curled back into the car.

“Thank goodness that is over,” sighed Casey before they had reached the end of the narrow street.

Rob continued to be uncommunicative. With a headache imminent, he detested the sensation of disappointment, having the sentiment sit inside like an unwanted intruder. Casey would not be quiet. She apologised for the dull proceedings, her parents’ ignorance, and the inelegant presentation of the tea.

Rob made a decision and told Casey to take a different route home.

“Why that way?” she frowned. “It’s miles out of the way.”

“I want to see some countryside,” he replied. “Humour me.”

The chosen roads were certainly devoid of traffic, and Casey was forced to drive slower to accommodate the curves and bends. The concentration kept her mouth from spouting out further tirades.

“Up that lane,” Rob pointed ahead.

“There?” she questioned. “That doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Well, for the time being that will be perfect. Not going anywhere is fine.”

The lane was overgrown with weeds, and even the hedgerows seemed to squeeze the narrow Mini between them. The car jolted and bumped over the small potholes, and Rob thought the ancient Mini was on the verge of coming apart.

“Park there,” he told her, pointing at a small copse of trees with a grassy frontage. “Turn off the engine.”

“Rob, what’s going on?” asked Casey, turning the key. “My parents weren’t that bad were they?”

“Bad?” asked Rob, turning to face her. “No, Casey, they were not bad at all. They were everything parents should be: proud, loving, and considerate. They tried hard to make me welcome, to make me feel at home, but unfortunately, a certain disgraceful young lady ruined it. This child, who I had thought would remember her own difficult transition, suddenly became a snob and rude. You glared, interrupted, talked over them, and did everything you could to imply your parents were something shameful.”

“Rob, I…” blustered Casey. “I thought… I mean… they are so different from us, from you.”

“From me?” snorted Rob. “You know very little about my upbringing, Casey.”

“I assume they were classy people with wealth and…”

“The wealth came from overseas, from a childless great-uncle who was fond of me and left me an inheritance. My own parents died years ago. They had very little, and every penny they saved went towards my education. Neither of them had a profession, though both were lovers of books. I made my own way, but it was their support that sustained my sister and me. It is you who has been appalling.”

* * *

“Me…” said Casey, fingering the steering wheel. Shutting her eyes, she replayed the day, and each minute she saw played before her eyes made her cringe. “Shit.”

“Yes, quite,” said Rob in agreement. “Get out of the car.”

Casey wanted what was coming, and now she understood the remote location. Rob stretched his legs and headed into the wooded area, while Casey remained pensively behind. Being made to wait for the inevitable conclusion to his little lecture served only to make her more disheartened by her attitude. She tracked about the rough grass in a circle, head low and eyes on the tiny ants making a route through the giant wilderness of their natural terrain. She noted how hard they worked amongst the tall blades and the focus such small creatures had to finish their chosen path without deviation. Her own route through life had been disorganised, and she imagined if she had been an ant, every blade of grass would have thwarted her journey to the point of giving up. In that moment, she cherished, like never before, Rob’s efforts to tame her lack of direction.

Rob returned some considerable time later with the dreaded object in his hands, and he tapped the still warm bonnet of the car with it. “A dozen of this. Over.”

Rob had decided in a traditional fashion to use birch branches to birch her. She reckoned he had twenty or so silvery thin branches, which were about two feet in length and had been gathered together to form the rod. The sight of the sticks nearly undid Casey. He had not chosen dry twigs, which would snap easily and risk cutting her, but the kind of slender young branches found on a sapling tree. Somehow he had removed the leaves and sharper edges to create something that resembled the end of a witch’s broomstick. Clasped together at one end in his hand, the sticks were not straight enough to gather into a neat bundle, nor were they of an even length. Casey wanted to baulk at him and plead for mercy, but she did not and was quite resolved to go through with his chosen act of discipline. She had to trust him.

In the end, Casey said nothing as she bent over the front of the car. Today she wore knickers, since she had known Rob would not expect her to be in her parents’ presence with no underwear.

“Down! Take them down,” he instructed, and she wriggled the knickers down to her knees.

His hand landed first. A few palm slaps to each buttock cheek in rapid succession. They were to prepare her, to let the skin warm and allow the nerve endings to begin to process what was to come next. She envisaged the worse caning or whipping she had ever had. All those little sticks were like thin canes. It was going to hurt like crazy. Her eyes screwed up tight, the muscles in her face contorted, and her legs wobbled underneath her.

There was a swooshing sound, a whistling through the air that even the singing birds could not drown out. Then there was a dreadful thud as the birch made contact, followed by numerous stings as each component of his makeshift implement made contact. The ends were particularly wicked and bit into her raw flesh. Casey gasped loudly. It was different—not a caning, nor a whipping. The birch had its own painful attributes, its own uniqueness. A hand was required to reposition her as she jumped up in response. Rob made no comment on her failure to hold position. It was the first strike, and another eleven were to follow. She would have to dig down deep to find her powers of endurance in order to tolerate his birching.