Chapter 1: Arrival

 

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.