There were only six of them where once there would have been hundreds, thousands even. But that had been before the Great Reaving. Back then there had been a diaspora to the stars and humankind had settled on a hundred worlds. It had been a new age when great star ships such as this had plied their trade between them.

War had brought the reaving and each world had gone its own way with a hundred different visions of humanity. In the end, Earth had failed to impose its centralised democracy and turned in on itself to indulge in hedonistic pursuits. But now, after nearly 200 years little by little worlds were opening up to outsiders.

The world below them was one such world and both the Matriarch and the Righteous were competing to bring it under their own influence.

Raw was an ocean world that hung like a sapphire and emerald jewel beside its ruby sister Severus. Twin planets locked in a dance around a sun far distant from their home worlds.

By opening up their system, the Raw were taking the risk that the philosophies of other worlds would not contaminate their own culture. Although they already knew that visitors here would try.

The Righteous were not subtle in their attempt, in their usual fashion they had sent a missionary, Rev Martin, to expound the ‘undeniable truth’ of their god. He had brought his wife and daughter as an example of a ‘good family’ and the ‘righteous way of life.’

The Matriarch had decided on sending a research team to ‘listen’ and study their newfound friends in order that they might find ‘common ground.’ Rachel Helicon was the leader of the group and at just 32 was considered by some to be too young for such a task. She herself had no doubts about her own abilities, but the fact that she could only muster two postgraduate students to accompany her may yet threaten the whole project.

The steward said nothing as he opened the viewing port so that the visitors could see their prospective conquest. He was long used to the bickering of rival groups and tuned out as they continued to debate.

The conversation tailed off as the ship orientated itself to land and Raw came into view, a hard uncompromising sphere of blue mottled by ragged islands of dark green.

The steward had seen few come to this remote planet in the few years since it had opened, but even fewer had left it. He shuddered, glad not for the first time that he could voyage between these worlds.

*

“Oh Daddy. What is this awful place? You cannot seriously mean to stay here for a whole year?” Jessica Martin was barely 20 and took after her mother when it came to missionary work. It was a duty to be sure, but a disagreeable episode and surely a temporary state of affairs on the way to the Rev Martin obtaining a bishopric.

“Hush Jessica, remember your manners.” But as the Rev Martin cast his eyes over the primitive stone village that clung to the cliffs overlooking the cove, he could not help but share his daughters disquiet.

Sandy might have voiced similar observations, only she would be damned if she would be seen to agree with one of the Righteous. She looked sideways at Penny Fury, her fellow student, the younger of the two. She did not seem to be quite so perturbed as she gauchely looked around with those innocent eyes of hers.

“Are there any boys here?” Penny blinked rapidly and glanced at Rachel for approval.

“Actually the young men are mostly segregated for their training and other studies,” the Rev Martin supplied absently as he took out his specs for a closer look at a small notice pinned to the stone harbour wall.

Rachel glowered at him, she knew that, but it irked her that one of the Righteous would usurp her place in front of her assistants. Not to be outdone she added: “They have whole islands set aside for such purposes, the only men we will see for now will be married men.”

“But I thought we weren’t allowed on their family islands?” Penny frowned conscious that she was struggling to understand what little she had read about their expedition parameters.

“We are not, but it is their children they don’t want us to infect, we will be steered away from general population centres until we gain some trust.” Rachel hated explaining the obvious to a student who wouldn’t even do the basic reading.

“What does it say dear?” Noticing that Jessica was listening intently to the outsiders, Mrs Martin was keen that these female supremacist perverts did not dominate the conversation and wanted to change the subject.

“Good heavens,” Rev Martin exclaimed. “It says that nude bathing is prohibited in the harbour or on beaches that are within sight of the town.”

“I should think not.” Mrs Martin pursed her lips. The woman was not yet 40 and yet was doing her best to embrace respectable middle age.

“I assume that means skinny-dipping is common elsewhere.” Sandy stated the obvious.

The Reverend had already drawn such a conclusion, but it amused Rachel to see the truth dawn on his wife and daughter’s faces.

*

James Mentis was the island hetman. It had fallen to him to provide a house for the Rev Martin and his family. He was far from happy about accommodating the outsiders, but Abraham had ordered it. To make matters worse his wife had protested bitterly about the risk of exposure to their three daughters. Eventually he had had to chastise his wife even though her words only echoed his own thoughts.

He looked up to regard Anne still humbly standing in the corner. She had been well tucked and turned, his mother would have been proud. His wife’s bare bottom was well presented and still held a firm red stain from the chafe.

Just then Clare and Chloe, his youngest daughters entered the house and although they did not pause at the sight of their mother under correction, they could barely hide their smirking and once they had passed Anne at her vigil. In the inner hallway they broke into giggles and hurried away.

It was not the first time they had seen Anne punished, but it was unusual for her to stand at the second position, a station more often reserved for them.

“Please James,” Anne whispered, tears all to apparent in her voice, “may I not stand in the inner chamber as is fitting… the maid and…”

The inner chamber was reserved for James and his wife and their daughters and servants would not venture their uninvited. Her shame, although deserved would be less if she stood cornered there.

“You argued with me past the third warning,” he sighed. It gave him no pleasure to humiliate her so before her daughters.

“I was wrong to do so and you were patient with me. I know Abraham has ordered it but I fear… I was wrong, I am sorry it is not for me to question Abraham’s will or your acceptance of it.”

“I ought to have you stand punitive vigil at the outer station as is fitting for a transgression that touches matters beyond this house,” James growled.

Anne gasped, but James was right. She shuddered at the prospect of being humbled before their neighbours, and she wife of the hetman.

“I am resolved you shall stand there past supper for the edification of the house and one more word of protest and you shall remain tucked for the rest of the week.”

“Yes sir.” Anne’s eyes were wide at the threat, just though it was brought on fresh tears.

“Be assured madam I will turn you again before bed.”

“Yes sir.”

*

Abraham hated having to remain at the white house. It was his least favourite provincial residence, but it had fallen to him to host the Matriarch ‘researchers’ and he himself had argued for caution in council when first contact had been mooted.

Worst of all was being separated form his beloved concubines. Had he a wife he could have brought her, but bonded companions were a decadence and many here in the outer islands would view him with suspicion if he had come so encumbered.

He often wondered why he had not just married them. After all a man of his age and standing was entitled to four wives. But his wife was dead and neither of his two girls had the experience to be a first wife. Not that he could bear the thought that he could ever replace her.

He was aware that Kim, the housemistress was standing patiently at his back as he gazed out over the town form the balcony.

“Kim?”

“The west wing is ready for your guests. Shall I assign a maid?”

“Not for now, let us see how they get on first. I will attend to them when they arrive.”

“As you say your honour.” Kim bowed and backed away. If she thought there was anything unusual in his in instructions, she would never say.

*

Pam Mentis found her two younger sisters giggling as they lay secreted on the upper balcony of the central roof. It was forbidden for them to be here as it overlooked their parents’ private apartments with its secluded courtyard. She knew why they were there. The sound of their mother’s spanking could already be heard from below.

For a moment she considered exercising her authority as the eldest by spanking them both, but she too was curious herself and it hardly seemed fair to play the grown-up over a transgression she too was about to commit.

“How does it progress?” Pam slipped down beside Clare and Chloe as they peered down over the edge.

“Oh I think Father is rather cross the way he is going at it. I do believe mother won’t sit easy for a week.” Pam noticed that Chloe slipped a hand over her cotton-covered bottom as she spoke, in remembrance of her last correction no doubt.

Below Anne had been turned over James’s knee so that her bare bottom was neatly rounded upwards for the chafe. They all knew how the sting felt, as did their mother as her formerly white globes turned an ever-deeper red.

Already Anne had stood in the corner all that evening as the family had tried to ignore her. It had put Lena, the maid in quite a nervous state as she scrambled about her duties blushing as if it were her that was being punished, making it a situation all the harder to ignore. This latest punishment was just an encore.

Pam had a special interest in this spanking, or more to the point the spanking implement. The chafe that spanked down slowly and hard with its thin leaf-shaped wooden blade had been polished shiny by generations of bare bottoms. For now this one was reserved for her mother, but tradition dictated that as the eldest, on her marriage, her mother would present it to her to give to her husband as Anne had given it to James.

“This is the best for a while,” Clare smirked as she craned her neck for an even better look at her mother’s spanking.

“I hope he doesn’t tuck her in public, its so embarrassing,” Pam sighed.

“Yeah, especially for mother,” Chloe chuckled. The younger girls both giggled at this.

Pam wondered if when she was married she would ever be punished as severely. The thought made her tingle strangely all over in a way that was as strange as it was pleasant.

“Oh please James I’m sorry.” The girls watched as below Anne spluttered out her first sob as the spanking continued in the not-so-private courtyard. At this the two younger girls broke out into giggling again and elbowed one another in glee.

“Quiet you two or I’ll spank you myself,” Pam hissed beginning to feel a little uncomfortable in her role as voyeur. Heaven help them if they were caught. They would suffer a lengthy dose of the hazer or even the dreaded harsh and were sure to be tucked for a month.

*

The next morning the six visitors were allowed to leave their temporary accommodation at the harbour and proceed to where they would be staying for their time here.

After a rather stiff leave-taking, the Martins left Rachel and her team at a fork in the road to go and find the hetman’s house.

The town was arranged around a cove, which served as a natural harbour. Rachel noticed that the better houses were higher up the hill and the white house standing high on the cliffs overlooking all the others was the best of the lot.

“That’s where we will be staying girls,” she said with a sigh, they were to be the guests of a high councillor known only as Abraham.

“Those Righteous people, the Martins are getting their own house, why are we staying here?” Penny frowned a little as she spoke as if trying to remember if this had been explained to her before. From Rachel’s expression she gathered that it had.

“The Martins are missionaries and the Rawrinians obviously don’t consider them a threat, whilst we are supposed to be studying these people and have to get closer. Besides the Matriarch is much more powerful and they have more reason to fear us.”

Rachel winced at Sandy’s pompous explanation, accurate though it was. But nonetheless corrected the girl. “It’s the Raw, not Rawrinians. This is the planet Raw home of the Raw, it’s not difficult to remember is it.”

“What a funny arrangement and a funny name, does it mean something in their language?”

Penny’s question appeared to floor even Sandy. Sometimes when the girl spoke, Rachel wondered how she ever came to be considered for doctoral studies at all.

“The Raw speak English, as we do and the Martins, for that matter. If you read your background notes you would know that the first settlers considered this a wild planet with wild or raw oceans, hence the name. The Raw believe in Gaia and the natural order, as they put it, and name themselves for their planet.” Rachel suddenly realised that Matriarch had little interest in this planet or else they would have sent properly trained researchers and not these kids to assist her.

“That is quite right, I am glad that you know something of us.” The voice startled them and they turned to see a tall well-built man who appeared to be in his early 40s.

“I am Abraham.” He said with a pleasant smile.

“Rachel Helicon.” Rachel was flustered and offered him her hand as she knew was their custom. “How do I address you? I mean you are or were a senator… I mean…”

“Abraham will suffice Ms Helicon.” He said easily as he shook Rachel’s hand.

Jenny held out her own but he ignored it and took her by the arm to return a pleasant squeeze. Sandy winced understanding the significance, they were to have dependent status only it seemed.

*

“Oh my gosh,” Mrs Martin exclaimed, literally taking a step backwards. “That girl is naked.”

Rev Martin could see nothing amiss as a group of young women crossed ahead of them, although they eyed him suspiciously. They were all dressed respectfully enough, although their bodices were a little tight and the skirts too short to his mind. Many women of his people wore skirts to the ankles as his wife did, but mid calf was acceptable for an unmarried woman, although these girls wore their skirts to just above the knee.

Then he noticed that one of the girls hung back against a wall and tried to keep her companions between her and the strangers. But she wasn’t naked. Then he realised that her skirts were tucked up behind exposing her bare bottom. Her buttocks held a decided rough red that extend to the top of her thighs, evidentially she had been recently chastised.

“A custom here I believe, to keep young woman in order.” He was afraid of this, there were many things that his family would find strange here.

Jessica openly laughed when she saw, much to the unfortunate girl’s distress. Then even her companions, as if see her again with fresh eyes joined in giggling.

“Jessica. Mind you manners.” Rev Martin snapped.

“She has been tucked.”

The Rev turned to see another young woman at the roadside. She wore a long skirt to her ankles as his wife did. She was accompanied by three girls around Jessica’s age, who’s skirts he was glad to see were at least cut below the knee.

“I did not mean to startle you. I am Anne Mentis, the hetman’s wife. My husband sent me to greet you and conduct you to your house.”

“Rev Martin and this is my wife Mrs Martin and my daughter Jessica.”

“Your wife does not have her own name?”

“Of course, but for us, after we marry first names are not used.” The Rev said evenly.

“How strange, but there we are.” Anne was not used to meeting strangers and although it was her duty, she wished she had been trained in diplomacy instead of housekeeping.

“You were saying that the girl had been ‘tucked’? What does that mean?” Mrs Martin cut in.

“They are indentured apprentices, bondswomen, on their way to work no doubt. Last night or this morning she was chastised and her guardian or employer has seen fit to tuck her, to expose her shame for further edification.” Anne winced a little as she spoke as she felt her own bottom throbbing still. She was mindful that in all probability if she had not been representing her husband this morning she too might have been tucked.

“How long will she remain so?”

“Perhaps just today, or a week, no more. Usually.” Anne said dismissively.

“Are all apprentices subject to such treatment?” Mrs Martin persisted, curious, horrified and fascinated all at once.

“Female apprentices, servants, dependent daughters above a certain age,” Anne eyed her daughters significantly as she spoke, she was enjoying Mrs Martin’s obvious discomfort. Then with a slight blush she added carefully. “And wives of course.”

Mrs Martin gasped and flustered while Jessica giggled.

*

The four of them were lunching alone on a balcony overlooking the cove. Apart from the maid standing silently nearby, they had seen no one else since their arrival.

“What exactly do you hope to learn?” Abraham asked as he offered Rachel more wine.

Rachel considered what she should say.

“You allow slavery don’t you,” Sandy accused before Rachel could answer. “That could cause problems if we were to trade with you. Our superiors at home will want to know about that.”

Abraham glared at her and Rachel wished, not for the first time that she had assistants with diplomatic training.

“We do not need to start with the most difficult issues and anyway our studies are purely anthropological, we are not here to make judgements,” she said hastily.

“A difficult subject? No not at all. I am surprised though that this young woman would speak up when I was addressing you,” Abraham said pointedly. “What would you like to know? I had no idea it would be an issue for the Matriarch. Aren’t men second class citizens in your society?”

“Of course not, it is just that…” Penny began without bothering to finish swallowing the savoury she was enjoying.

“It is a question of interpretation, of course, words can be so misleading sometimes.” Rachel could cheerful have strangled Penny, Abraham had already more than hinted that the girls were not to speak out of turn. “Abraham. You were about to explain the Raw social structure.”

For a moment Abraham didn’t answer, but continued to stare at Penny who was engrossed in her lunch oblivious to her faux pas. Then he turned back to Rachel and smiled.

“Our society is based on respect and merit,” Abraham began. “We believe that men should come first in the house and that that is the natural order of things. You only have to look at the natural world to see the truth of this. Look what happened when mankind did not heed this truth, we almost destroyed ourselves.”

“What about spiders and lizards? The female is dominant there.” Sandy interjected. She might have said more, but a clearly irritated Abraham smoothly cut her off.

“I was speaking of mankind, of primates if you will. We are mammalian creatures. But if I may continue…”

“Yes of course please go on,” Rachel urged.

“In our society women are not lesser creatures as men are in your society, but we respect the order of things and play to our strengths. There are always exceptions, as I think our young friend here was trying to say, and a woman may make her own way in the world if she has a mind to. There is no stigma.”

Abraham paused to see if there was any point continuing. Rachel at least was listening intently, so he pressed on.

“Everyone has a similar education, which is provided by society at large, and they are expected to pursue that education as far as the are able regardless of gender. Once the education is complete, then a young person serves a bond as an apprentice to train for later life and to pay society back. This is the main route to full citizenship or freeman status as we call it. Although for men and occasionally women, there is the military. I myself served for 21 years in our naval forces combating pirates and renegades.”

“A bondsman serves seven years, the bond fee going to the state as a kind of tax. Then most serve at least another seven years in order to master their chosen trade and that bond fee is put into a fund for their future, either as a pension if they enter domestic service or a dowry for girls, or as a start-up sum for when they are ready to go into business for themselves.”

“Forgive me, but freemen cannot stand for high office? Is that correct? How can you say that they are full citizens?” Rachel was fascinated.

“Good question. A freeman cannot, that is true, by freeman I also mean freewomen; you must forgive our archaic language. But a freeman who rises high in his or her trade may become a guild master for instance, thereby being elevated to the rank of optimate. Then they may be called to the senate. Notice I said called, those who push for such a position are rarely chosen.”

“I see. Let me see if I have this right,” Rachel frowned in concentration. “Your society has an informal nobility, ex-senators and the like, below them are the intelligentsia, the optimates as you call them, this includes guild masters, academics, military officers and so on. Below these are freeman, the majority…?”

“By and large, yes. Certainly the largest single group,” Abraham agreed.

“Under them you have a large temporary, albeit for long stretches of their life, bondsman class?”

“Exactly so.” Abraham nodded in satisfaction.

“But 20 years, you don’t get to be free until you’re old…” Penny wailed, but Rachel cut her off with a chop of her hand.

“But what about slaves? Where do they fit in?”

Abraham smiled indulgently.

“We have little crime on Raw, within our islands and cities anyway. There are always pirates and bandits, but they are few. We have no prisons; crimes are punished with fines or service. Women may be chastised for minor offences, men are given hard labour for a few days sometimes if they cannot pay the fine.”

“And so…” Rachel was beginning to wonder if he would come to the point.

“Well murder, and other capital crimes are sometimes committed. Then the convicted are given three choices: death by beheading, exile to Severus or slavery. Severus, as you know is the other habitable planet in our system, but is a grim desert world and almost half the exiles die in the first year. Most men choose exile, most women slavery. But as I say, we have little real crime and there are only a few dozen such cases each year. No one has chosen death in my life time.”

“So you are saying that only criminals are enslaved?”

“There are also prisoners of war that remain hostile to us and who cannot be repatriated and sometimes there are volunteers.”

“Volunteers.” Sandy gasped.

Abraham shrugged, amused at the girl’s naivety.

“Slaves are rare, prices are high. The volunteers keep most of their own sale price, a fat pension if properly invested and a life free of responsibilities.”

Abraham waited as the women fell into an embarrassed silence, although he sensed that only Rachel understood. Then to rescue them he answered Penny’s earlier concern.

“Twenty years of service is not so high on Raw. We may look primitive but our technology is very advanced, especially our biotech. We long ago mastered DNA degeneration.”

“What do you mean?”

“How old do you think I am?” Abraham asked seriously.

“Thirty-five, 40 maybe.” Rachel shrugged.

“That is very kind of you to say 35,” he chuckled. “I am almost 80.”

“But that’s impossible, Sandy snapped.

“After puberty our people age at perhaps at only a third of the rate of yours. Although the anti-ageing process breaks down somewhat once the human body reaches a physical late middle age. The average age at death is about 150, with people having youthful active lives at 120 or so.”

“If this is true how have you kept this a secret for so long?”

“It is no secret.” Abraham shrugged. “The Matriarch have been trading for our technology since we made first contact. If your rulers keep it to themselves, then that it is not our concern.”

*

The house was more than they could have hoped for and Mrs Martin was in her element planning out where she could move various pieces of furniture and which room would best serve as her husband’s study. There were however strange features to the house, which she had been assured were traditional on Raw for a dwelling house. For one thing, the house was built in concentric circles, with both an inner and outer courtyard. The inner courtyard was only accessible from the most intimate rooms at the heart of the house. The outer courtyard was enclosed from the street and held alcoves and seemed to double as a garden for the family. Also a feature of the outer courtyard seemed to be what could only described as a village pillory.

While she puzzled on the strangeness of such a thing, she noticed that the passage to the inner part of the house was not straight but jagged so that it held three corners. Similar arrangements were also a feature of the main reception room, the entrance hall and in the outside patio facing the street.

“They are called penitent steps,” Anne Mentis had explained. “A miscreant maid or daughter is set to stand in the corner by degrees from the private areas of the house all the way out to the street as may be required.”

“Wives too no doubt,” Mrs Martin said dryly and pursed her lips.

“You come to understanding readily Mrs Martin,” Anne smiled.

“I take it the head stocks in the courtyard are designed with a similar theme in mind. Well we will have no need of such things in this house.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Anne shrugged. “In any case I have traditional house gifts for you.”

Anne placed on the table a leaf-shaped paddle cut from thin but exquisite wood. A larger flat paddle with a long springy handle that was about a yard long and a long thing plaited stick that was unwound a third of the way down so that three fine wands of an ivory-like substance hung free but close on one another.

“The first is a chafe, a symbolic article of submission to one’s husband, a sign of loyalty to his house. Many husbands prefer to give their wives an occasional hand spanking and to leave this to ceremony. In other marriages it is very much in use.” As she spoke she was again aware of the soreness of her own bottom from the recent application of her own chafe. “This one may be used.”

Mrs Martin blushed and glanced around in case her husband was in earshot and then she gingerly picked up the device to examine it.

“The second is a hazer. It is the standard implement for domestic chastisement. Used mainly for servant girls, but daughters can benefit as well from time to time.” Anne had no need to add that a wife might also be a recipient when needed. “Lastly there is the harsh and as the name suggests, it is really quite a devilish thing. Hopefully not much used but you may as well have the full set.”

“Thank you, I know you mean well by these gifts. I was no stranger to corporal punishment as a girl, but there was rather less ritual.” Mrs Martin was more at ease without her husband and daughter being present and it was good to talk to another woman. Still she could not help feel some disquiet.

*

It had been days since the conversation with Abraham, but still Rachel felt much disquiet at what she had learned. She very much wanted to condemn this society but everything she saw and everything she read convinced her that the people of Raw, however wrong-headed, were sincere and open about their beliefs. Whereas she was seeing her own society through fresh eyes and for the first time, she did not like where her thoughts were leading her.

She had taken a walk through the town to clear her head, happy at last to free of her two ignorant, lazy and arrogant assistants. At least Penny had the excuse of being stupid, Sandy had a brain but would not look beyond the box the Matriarch had coddled her in.

She compared them to the polite girls of Raw who, it seemed led productive lives of service that allowed them to gain some experience before being allowed to pontificate on what some did not understand.

Here and there, she saw small groups of women going about their daily business. Often she noticed that one or two in a group might be tucked so that her recently thrashed bare bottom was exposed. She could not help thinking that Sandy and Penny might benefit from the same treatment. She smiled to herself as the little fantasy played out in her mind.

Then Rachel remembered that at only 32, she was little more than a girl on this world herself and in the ordinary way of things she would only be considered half trained herself. She blushed and suppressed strange feelings as she remembered some of the stupid questions and observations she had cast in the ever-patient Abraham’s direction.

Perhaps motivated by a sudden embarrassed self-consciousness, she turned off the main boulevard and down a residential side street. At the corner a young girl hurried past her with down cast eyes. She appeared very young, perhaps 18, and from the front she wore her skirt over the knee as Rachel had learned was the custom for dependent free women. But as the girl passed her, Rachel glanced back and saw that she had been recently treated to a sustained and very sound spanking. The red stain on her bare bottom was still fresh and vivid and Rachel fancied she could see a hint of rubbery welts where the redness met the remaining whiteness in the cleft of her buttocks. The girl cast a very woeful expression at Rachel and then hurried off to complete whatever errand she had been dispatched on.

As Rachel made her way up the street, she noticed another young girl standing in the corner of one the strange insteps that were a feature of Raw houses. It needed no effort to see that she too had been tucked having been thrashed with something more severe than a chafe. Rachel was not as shocked as she might once have been and paused to consider the scene. It was hard to gauge the girl’s age, it gave Rachel no comfort to realise that she could easily be a woman somewhat older than herself. Rachel concluded this from the fact that she could see that the girl usually wore her skirts above the knee, indicating that she was a bondswoman. Undoubtedly she was an errant maid who was being severely punished.

As she watched the girl admiring her disciplined fortitude in the face of what would be for Rachel a humiliating ordeal, she was suddenly surprised by the realisation that her interest was more than just scientific. The sight of the pert red bottom and made her aroused. And it had been some time since she had been with anyone. She hurried on.

Further up there were two more girls standing exposed at stations on a house patio facing the street. Rachel guessed they were daughters of the house this time and something about the cut and material of their clothes made her realised that they were probably sisters’ of the girl she had seen on an errand at the corner. What mischief had led to this drama, Rachel could only guess at. She was suddenly dying to know more and considered introducing herself to their mother or father within. In the spirit of research of course, but the lie made her blush and she fled.

*

To date Jessica had been fascinated by all things Raw. Far from the strictures of her own society and with her mother and father working hard to settle in, she had been left much to her own devices. As one of freeman status, albeit it had been explained, a dependent freewoman, she had enjoyed the deference she had been given within the community. She was particularly amused every time she saw a tucked girl trying to look invisible as she tried to go about her business. She once saw five bondswomen in a group all having been tucked. Perhaps it was their numbers or their age, they all looked nearer 30, but for the most part, they carried their public shame with an air of dignity.

Jessica had followed them as close as she dared, as she had sometimes followed others, and had taken a prurient pleasure in their exposure. To her surprise, she felt no sympathy, although judging from the vivid marks on their bare bottoms it was clear that they had been soundly punished.

Days later she had been heading home when she saw the three Mentis girls sitting on a wall at the corner of their mutual street. As soon as they saw her they began nudging each other and smirking.

“Little alien girl,” Chloe sang mockingly.

Jessica tried to ignore them and hurried on.

“Think you’re better than us do you?” Clare mocked.

Jessica might have answered them but as she glanced back, Pam elbowed her sister and scolded her.

“Don’t. It’s childish,” she whispered.

The girls were the only people she had been introduced to who were about her own age and she wished that they weren’t so hostile. But even as she thought this, her annoyance turned to anger. Once out of sight she swore mildly at a tree and kicked it with a loud angry groan.

“I don’t have to take this crap,” she said aloud and turned back to confront them.

However by the time she got back to the corner the three had already moved on and had crossed the road onto a track that lead through a copse of trees heading away from town. Realising that she had never been that way she followed. Very quickly, instead of angry, she became curious and a little envious as the three girls laughed and jostled among themselves as they skipped down the lane through the trees.

The lane led to a small cove with a delightful little beach.

Where Jessica used to live, it had been miles from the sea and the sight of this secluded beach melted her heart. If only she could just talk to them. However, deciding to be cautious, she slipped behind a bush to watch.

It didn’t take long to find out what they were up to. The three quickly stripped down to nothing and ran screaming naked into the sea. This was against the rules of propriety even on Raw, but Jessica only felt excitement at the girl’s display of rebellion. For a moment she considered joining them, but shyness held her back. Then as she watched she became envious again and remembered their taunting at the top of the hill. As she watched a little scheme hatched in her mind. So carefully and quietly she slipped away back home.

At this time of day her father would be playing chess with James Mentis, the hetman and the three girls’ father. The two men had become unlikely friends in recent weeks. An evil grin spread across her face.

*

“It is funny how some things endure,” Rev Martin said. “Take this game for instance, I don’t know how many thousand years man has been playing chess, but despite the huge diaspora and diversity of mankind’s exodus to the stars, here we are two men from different worlds still playing it.”

“Are we so different?” James asked as he made his move. “I mean I believe in the natural order and that all things are part of one Great Spirit. Is that so very different to your one god?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Rev Martin considered. “I have to say that the more I learn of your world the more I see what we have in common. With the perspective of distance I can’t help but rile against how ‘buttoned up’ my culture is compared to yours and how hypocritical we are. We have a patriarchal society in all but name, although we choose to deny it. You do not hide your patriarchal nature, but women here have more freedom over all than they ever have at home.”

“Not going native on me are you Reverend?” James began to laugh.

As Rev Martin joined in, Jessica walked nonchalantly into the room.

“Good afternoon father, your honour.” The latter greeting was traditional for a hetman or optimate when addressed by a freeman.

“Hello Jessica what have you been up to today?” Rev Martin asked absently, more intent on James’ recent move.

“Oh I just went for a walk,” Jessica replied as if butter wouldn’t melt. Her father would have noticed she was up to something if he hadn’t been so intent on the game.

“What do your daughters do all day? Nothing so idle I’ll be bound.”

“I have enough to do without worrying about my womenfolk,” James said with a mock snort, enjoying the difficulty he had caused Rev Martin with his move.

“Oh they are down by the sea in that pretty cove just by here. Oh father it is amazing, I can’t believe I haven’t found it before.”

“At this time of day? What are they doing down there? There are no shell fish to be gathered there that I know of.” The hetman frowned as if remembering a stray responsibility he had overlooked.

“Oh they were just swimming, skinny dipping I think you call it,” Jessica said innocently.

“They what?” The hetman growled.

“Oh I do hope I haven’t spoken out of turn? Nude bathing is allowed here is it not?”

“It is yes, of course,” James muttered. “But it is hardly respectable for a hetman’s daughter.”

The reverend harrumphed and looked significantly at the door as hint that Jessica should leave. The damage done, it was hint she was glad to take.

*

“A penny for them.”

Rachel looked up and saw Abraham walking towards her. “What’s a penny?”

“It’s a small… oh never mind, different culture. I was just observing that you deep in thought.”

“Oh it’s nothing.” Rachel shook her head.

“Are you learning much about us?”

“Oh yes,” she said brightly. “Oodles.”

“Oodles?” He shrugged.

“Different cultures,” they both said together and laughed.

“A small coin.”

“Sorry. Oh yes a penny you remembered.”

“Yes I am getting as bad as my assistants, not remembering my studies.”

“Perhaps I should spank you as well.”

Rachel blushed and looked away.

“I was joking,” he inclined his head and spoke softly.

“Yes, of course, I know,” she said with false bonhomie. Then to quickly change the subject, well partially she added, “You said as well.”

“Those two students of yours drive me mad,” he mimed rage and did a comedy grimace. “Don’t you wish you could spank them?”

Rachel doubled up with laughter and with a guilty look around, nodded.

“You remind me of my wife,” he said suddenly serious.

“Oh. You are married?”

“I was. She died, an accident.”

“I’m sorry.”

He waved his arm dismissively. “Long time ago.”

“Don’t all you important people have a dozen wives?”

“Now I really should spank you,” he laughed.

She blushed again.

“Four isn’t it?” She asked to deflect him.

He shrugged.

“Come on I bet you have lots of mistresses and concubines.”

“It’s only natural.”

“For women too? Is it natural to share?”

“Sometimes.”

She had never been with a man like this, she realised. Who was she to tease him over something she knew nothing about?

“It’s hard enough to find one worthy woman, let alone more.”

He took her by the chin and as she fell into his eyes, he kissed her.

“If I slapped you, would you spank me?” She pulled away confused trying to assert some control.

“You know I would.”

*

“It’s all your fault.” Chloe sounded sullen as she stood with her nose to the corner.

“It’s all of our faults,” Pam said impatiently as she stood next to her. Frustrated that yet again she was to be blamed for all their mischief.

Clare completed the trio. She remembered that not so long ago she had received an extra spanking for talking while in the corner, so she was definitely keeping closed-mouthed.

All three of them had been tucked and had been made to stand in the main inner hallway. It could have been worse, their mother had threatened them with the patio.

“If you want to make an exhibition of yourselves then I can certainly arrange that,” she had growled as she dragged Chloe over her knee to be the first recipient of the chafe.

Pam and Clare had exchanged horrified glances at this.

“There was no one to see us, honestly mother, we…” Pam said pleadingly. She was cut off by the impact of the chafe on her sister’s naked bottom.

In a few moments, the tight white rounds of Chloe’s bottom went from pale to bright pink.

“If you were so discreet how did your father find out?” Anne barked as she renewed the vigour of the spanking.

“We…” Pam had no idea. All she knew is that when her father came home from the Martins’ house he had scolded them about propriety and setting an example. He hadn’t actually ordered a spanking but Anne had overheard and was inclined to be much less lenient.

“It’s the kind of thing I did at your age I know, but my father was an innkeeper not an optimate and hetman to boot. You have to think of your father’s position.” The last words were spaced for emphasis each coinciding with a swat to Chloe’s bottom.

“Please mother,” Chloe started to blub as her bottom took on an even deeper hue.

“That’s it my girl, you wait, I am not done yet. And Pamela, once I am through with you, you won’t sit down for a week. I expect more from you as the eldest.”

Anne had been as good as her word and it had taken almost an hour to spank all three of them.

“Now you will remain tucked for the rest of the day, now get to your corners until I release you.”

Without specific orders to go to the street side patio, their corners meant the inner courtyard and they hasten there before their mother amended the instruction.

Even then there was an even chance that at least one of them would be sent on a street errand still tucked. Pam had risked untucking herself in the past, so hateful was she of public exposure, but the penalties had been severe, she shuddered at the memory. She would hide away once released and pray Lena wouldn’t find her if she were summoned.

Who had given them away? The Martin girl, it had to be. Well just wait until I get around to her, Pam vowed as she fumed shamefaced in the corner.

*

Rachel had finally resolved to confront her growing disquiet and had sent a message to the Matriarch representative at the capital. In it, she had reported her conversation with Abraham and asked whether it was true that the Matriarch had been secretly trading in biotech.

What had finally pushed her to such action was a conversation she had with Kim, Abraham’s housemistress. She had awoken riven by dreams of unnamed punishment. She had been drenched, but that was not the only regard in which she was wet. It had been months since the Matriarch home world and she had never felt so aroused. In her heat she had turned on to her stomach to handle herself. As her bottom bucked under the sheets, she was put in mind of punishment and for some reason the effect became electric.

Masturbation was the main sex relief in the Matriarch. Oh most outsiders thought they were all lesbians and indeed in her youth Rachel had some affairs with girls, but secretly she craved the forbidden men. Now on a world where men were so readily present, where he was present, her self-pleasuring seemed hollow somehow.  Then Kim had disturbed had in her the last throws of her pleasure and instead of the proper unconcern she felt embarrassed.

“I was just…” She blushed.

“None of my concern. Do you need a girl? I can provide one easily. It is common here.” Kim spoke without the least guile. This embarrassed Rachel all the more. Why a girl and not a boy? She wondered. But she knew the answer. “That is your way isn’t?”

“Yes.” Rachel sound churlish and defiant to her own ears.

On the voyage there, Sandy and Penny had teased the Martins with a discussion on the latest masturbation techniques and toys. They had been horrified and had made their excuses, before scurrying away.

Rachel had chided the girls for their lack of tact, but secretly she had felt superior and enlightened. Now she felt uncomfortable. Was she going native? She wanted some reassurance from the Matriarch representative.

Satisfied that she had done the right thing she went to the stables. On Raw they still used horses as a common means of transport. Rachel had never even seen a horse, much less ridden one and she was curious.

However, when she arrived at the side courtyard it was clear that some punishment was underway. Two bondswomen had been tucked and had been set to scrubbing the courtyard floor on their hands and knees. They were both side-by-side displaying the obvious signs of a recent spanking, their bottoms pert and upturned swaying from side to side as the vigorously scrubbed at the stones. Rachel licked her lips as her eyes played across the girl’s scarlet flesh and then she heard the sound of a further correction from within one of the stable blocks.

As she passed the two humbled women they tried to hide their faces, but not before Rachel saw that they were distinctly red at both ends. And even by Raw standards they looked young.

Inside the stable a statuesque blonde woman was sitting on a bale of hay with another girl stretched out over her firm sturdy thighs. The girl over her knee had been tucked and already her bare bottom was resplendent with a singing red glow.

“You little brat, what have I told you?” What Rachel now knew to be a chafe was being struck repeatedly on the upturned bottom as its owner yelped and squealed at each impact.

“I was only having a lark ma’am.” The girl was spluttering into tears.

“A lark? A lark you say, these girls are new, they have to learn, they don’t need to be sent on false errands just for your amusement.”

Rachel hung back not wanting to interrupt and eager to see how the chastisement continued. The spanking was a prolonged affair and it was a good 20 minutes before the sobbing girl was let up and allowed to go to the corner.

“Oh Ms Helicon, I didn’t see you there.”

“You know my name?”

“Yes of course, it is as well for a servant of the house to know such things or else you just witnessed what can happen.” The tall blonde woman seemed cheerful in her observation and displayed not the slightest discomfort at the implication of her words.

“What was…?” Rachel nodded at the sobbing girl in the corner.

“Oh we have two new apprentices. And Kylie here thought it would be funny to send them to me to ask for some chafe polish.”

Rachel shrugged not quite understanding.

“The only chafe polish is a girl’s bare bottom. I obliged of course, it’s the only way to learn ‘em, but Kylie knows better and I’ll see her tucked as well for her troubles.”

“The other two are the ones outside I gather?”

“Does ‘em no ‘arm. Now what can I do for you?”

Rachel had learned a lot from Dilly, the horse mistress that afternoon. Dilly explained that she and Kim had signed a life bond with Abraham.

“You mean you’re slaves?” Rachel was agog.

“No, nothing like that, but we are happy with our position and rather than pitch ourselves onto an uncertain job market with the incumbent risk of another seven years of bond with a new master, we signed a life bond.”

Rachel opened her mouth to ask why that was different from slavery, but Dilly pressed on enthusiastically with her explanation.

“You see we have a status above that of a bondsman and the bonds fee is enormous. I will have enough for my own stable in 20 years. Of course I can give a years notice at anytime, but then I lose out on some of the fee and what would I do?”

“And Kim?” Rachel smiled caught up with Dilly’s enthusiasm.

“Oh I reckon that she is secretly in love with Abraham.” Then in a conspiratorial whisper she added, “you know she sees to his needs while he is here.”

“You mean…” For some unaccountable reason, Rachel felt a flash of jealousy at this gossip.

“Don’t say a word, Kim would stripe me raw with a harsh every day for a week if she knew what I just said.”

“You submit to Kim.”

Dilly shrugged.

“She’s the chatelaine.”

Dilly was also pleased to explain the subtleties of the Raw dress code. As she pointed out, her and Kim’s skirts were just below the knee at the front but angled up to above the knee behind, signifying they were life-bonded. She also indicated that Kylie’s skirts, although above the knee were longer than the two new girls as she was a second term bondsman.

“Look close the next time you are out and about. Some girls wear their skirts as close to the knee as they can, often attaching frills and fringes to obscure the hemline. Putting on airs I call it. Also if a man’s wife wears her skirts like I do then she is a bond wife, or a concubine.”

Rachel laughed at Dilly’s mocking face as she spoke.

“Also you wear your hair short don’t you?”

Rachel ran her hand over her boyish crop.

“It’s a slave cut. The longer a woman’s hair the higher her status, bondswomen, for instance, keep their ears covered. Optimates grow it over their arses. Follow me?”

“Is all this law or custom?”

“Mostly custom. Some of it is just fashion. Women dream stuff all the time, would you believe.”

“Women?”

“Well yes, you don’t think men give a stuff about hair do you? For instance, it was a woman who invented the laser brand. First wives got into it, and then bondswomen. It had become quite a craze. The next thing you know it will be an obligatory custom.”

“What is a laser brand?”

Dilly flicked her tongue over her top lip and giggled.

“It is a semi-permanent tattoo of sorts. It takes the form a unique logo or symbol that is no bigger than the nail of your small finger. It is placed on the crown of the left buttock of wives, and the right buttock of bondswomen. Those who have contracted to provide additional services anyway.”

“Who would want a mark like that?” Rachel found herself secretly aroused by the idea.

Dilly smiled and stood up and then after a glance around, she turned and flipped up her skirt. On her right bottom cheek was a small almost unnoticed mark. It appeared to be dark and metallic and depicted a circle with three lines.

“Cute eh?”

There was much more in this vein and Rachel decided that she and Dilly were to become firm friends.

*

Jessica had looked in vain for any sign of the Mentis girl’s punishment. She knew that they had been spanked because she overheard her father and James Mentis talking. But when she saw them out walking a few days later, there was no sign that they might have been punished.

The other thing she could not get out of her mind was the secluded cove. The girls had looked so free as they ran naked into the waves. Why should they have all the fun?

It was harder than she thought to find the exact place where she could cut through the woods to the cove. She could see now why she had not found it until she had followed the girls, but eventually she broke through the undergrowth just a little further up than before on the edge of the sand.

It was perfect. There was no overlook and you had to be almost on the sand itself before you could even see the water and what water, blue and warm because of the shallows. She shed her clothes before she had realised she had decided to and then ran headlong into the gentle waves. Her parents would have been outraged by such behaviour and on her home world she would have been shunned in all likelihood. She felt ashamed for a moment but then the water washed it away with the rest of her cares.

However, she was not as alone as she thought and from within the undergrowth three pairs of eyes were watching her.

“Got you,” Pam whispered.

“What shall we do?” Chloe asked.

“Some old fashioned blackmail,” Clare grinned.

“Oh I think I have a better idea.”

*

Penny’s files remained unopened and gathering dust on her bedside table. Why should she read about Raw when it was there outside her door? Yesterday there had been a man on the beach, he had smiled at her and winked. At home he would have been arrested, assuming of course she had ever got so close to a man. Only women given to men as punishment ever saw men, those and the elect who were chosen for breeding.

“It’s so unfair,” she had confided to Sandy.

“You can be such a goose sometimes. If you were caught smiling at a man who winked at you at home, he wouldn’t be the only one arrested.”

Penny gaped at her, one really shouldn’t say such things. The leaders of the Matriarch were not tyrants were they? She changed the subject.

“Have written your report yet?”

“Report? Oh… no I haven’t. Have you?”

“I haven’t even read the guidance notes.”

At home she would never have made such an admission. Then at home Rachel would have found her out by now. But Rachel seemed as distracted as they had been.

Penny went to the balcony. Severus was rising, a huge disc of red filling the sky. On some days it brought a second night to the islands. It was majestic. She wondered if she would ever get used to it. She would probably be recalled home long before that happened, she thought sadly. Suddenly she felt alone and hurried off to Sandy’s room.

“Sandy?”

There was no sign. She took one last look around for a clue and spotted the book lying on Sandy’s bed.

“You lying cow, you have been researching for your report,” she accused the empty room.

Picking up the book she glanced at the open page. There was a clinical sketch of a girl in a kneeling posture with her back arched. The text beside the graphic was discussing possible implements, severity and the length of application. Penny felt her heart race.

The cover of the book bore the legend: A handbook for domestic punishment. Penny looked guiltily around and then slipped away to her room with the book. Sandy was probably only reading it for research purposes, but Penny already knew that she had an altogether different kind of interest in the tome.

*

Jessica stepped out of the water feeling the sun on her naked body and the water running off her toes. She felt deliciously naughty and above all free. On her home world she would never had done such a thing as swimming naked, but here it seemed… natural.

She strode across the beach to where she had put her clothes feeling the sand under toes. The red rock cliffs rose all around her like cathedral walls, and out to sea the razor sharp horizon, which hung beneath the azure sky was broken by the red disc of Severus rising. If only she never had to leave.

Much of the foliage bordering the cove was very similar, but one tree had stood out. The unknown species had put her in mind of the cedar that had dominated the churchyard back home. It was here that she had secreted her clothes. As she reached it she ducked under its branches and reached under the roots.

“Oh hell,” she cursed as she found nothing. She tried again. She hated getting sand on her wet body, but the clothing had slipped deeper under and she couldn’t reach. But after desperately searching for several minutes, a sense of sickening dread crept over her with the dawning realisation that her clothes were gone.

“Where…?” Somewhere she heard giggling, young women laughing, at her no doubt. The Mentis girls, she knew it.

“Give me back my clothes you bitches,” she screamed, hating herself for offering them the hoped for reaction.

“Tsk, tsk, has someone stolen them?” The voice sounded like Pam. “You try and tell that to the town lictor, maybe he will believe you, but full public nudity is frowned on here, away from the beach anyway.”

“Oh yes you might get a public flogging,” came another voice. Clare she guessed.

“You dirty shitting, bitch bastards,” Jessica howled in rage. It was the worse curse words she knew.

She was trying hard to remember what one of the girls from the Matriarch had said on the voyage here. Something that had sounded far worse, but the laughter faded and she knew she was alone.

Jessica suddenly felt very exposed and looked frantically about for anyone else. She remembered Clare’s jibe about a public flogging. They did that here. Worse still she remembered what her father had said about observing their laws and customs and that she would face consequences if she got up to ‘any antics.’

Well ‘antics’ just about covered nude bathing she guessed. Would her father really let them whip her? Those girls must think there was a good chance. Jessica felt close to tears. She could probably reach the road without being seen, but the edge of the village was just beyond, she would never get up the street to her house without being seen.

She decided to stay off the path and keep well inside the trees, but it was harder to walk with bare feet on the twigs and stones on the ground. It took most of the rest of the day to go the short distance to the road. Then she found she had exited the wood further up from the end of her street than she had intended. That meant that she had to duck from cover to cover where she could, running at a stoop with her hands clutched over her exposed sex and breasts. Her bottom would have to take care of itself for the moment.

By dusk she had got as far as the house on the corner when she saw someone coming up the street.

“Oh hell,” she wailed and then had a brainwave. Shaking her hair down her back, she made a dash for the patio of the house, where she found one of those strange exposure corners and stood as she had seen other girls stand. With any luck in the gloom the passer-by would take her for a naughty maid or some such.

It was a good plan thwarted by the fact that the passer-by lived at the house in question.

“Hello,” he said, scratching his head. “Do we have a new maid?”

“Um…” Jessica made a dash for it and in the process exposed most of what he hadn’t seen.

She had no idea who else might have seen her because she didn’t stop until she got home.

“Miss Jessica?” The maid gaped as Jessica pushed past her.

James Mentis and Rev Martin looked up from their chess game just in time to see a flash of naked girl flesh dashing past.

“What in god’s name?” The Reverend was aghast.

“I rather think I know what might have happened, it’s an old trick in these parts. And I know three experts in such trickery,” James Mentis said in amusement.

“There is nothing funny about this,” Rev Martin raged. Then he caught the hetman’s eye and returned a grudging smile. “Well, Mrs Martin won’t be amused anyway.”

“No. And nor shall I be tomorrow,” James sighed.

*

James Mentis paced up and down behind the three upturned bottoms. As he did so he sprung the hazer between his fingers and contemplated the white spherical targets pointing at his study ceiling.

Pam, Clare and Chloe were kneeling on a padded bench bending forward with the hands flat on the floor.

“I am going to be severe with you this morning, very severe, would any of you like to posit a reason why?”

“Daddy I… I’m to blame, I thought…” Pam saw no sense in them all taking what was coming, besides her father sometimes responded favourable to honourable contrition.

“You didn’t think did you?”

“No Daddy.”

“Father, it was as much our fault as Pam’s, we just wanted to…”

“I know what you just wanted,” James sighed. “A neighbour saw her, as you hoped. Luckily he saw the funny side but we have to set an example.”

“Sorry Daddy. I am ready to take my punishment.” Pam steeled herself by fixing her eyes on a point on the floor as she had learned to do at the academy.

Her younger sisters had not the courage to submit so readily and were still childishly praying for a reprieve of some kind. Perhaps the Matriarch would launch an attack or the Righteous.

“You are tucked until further notice, you do know that? And your mother will find every errand possible for you to run in town, until you are apprenticed if necessary.”

“Yes Daddy,” Pam sniffed. Here it comes, she thought, the phrase that would launch the storm.

“And don’t any of you imagine that you will be able sit down for a month.”

The first swat stung Chloe’s bottom and barked her pain into the floor. Clare couldn’t help but watch the expression on her sister’s face, but Pam was more disciplined and held her eyes on her spot.

James was in no particular hurry and struck Chloe several more times as she began to cry, before taking Clare by surprise and searing her squirming bottom.

For Pam it was the waiting that was worse and she tried hard not to count the strokes. She wasn’t the only one. James spanked on instinct and redness of the bottom. The more stoical the girl and more resilient her bottom, the more she was bound to get. Not that that was the only criteria, sometimes he spanked the cry baby a little more as well, assuming she was probably not being spanked often enough.

Only Pam understood this and only Pam would not use the insight to lessen her punishment, so when the hazer finally set a small fire in her backside, she gritted her teeth and as a matter of pride tried to be stoical.

The thin length of wood stung her bottom a dozen or more times and James only switched targets for the sake of the others. Clare, who’s bottom was prominent in the middle had expected Chloe to be next and let out a surprised howl when her father belaboured her again. They would all get much the same by the time he was done, James thought grimly, keeping them off balance kept them contrite.

Pam half expected him to switch back to her after another half dozen to Clare but James changed tack and swiped Chloe, Clare and then her with one-swatters that almost tipped them forward. Then after three rounds of this he fixed on Chloe again until she was sobbing hard.

Please Daddy I can take it, Chloe can’t, she thought. But could she? She soon found out as again James tried to break her.

The hazer seared their three bottoms roughly five times before Pam would break and only then did James take a breather. By then their bottoms were no longer white but each held its own unique stain. The fair skinned Chloe’s bottom was a vivid red that had deepened from pink. Clare’s bottom was a dusty red with white patches where her skin had chafed. On the other hand, Pam’s larger round bottom was a smooth shiny burgundy leaning to purplish. She took after her mother in that regard, James observed as he took up the hazer again.

It was a long session for the three of them and when their father was finally done they were marched out to the patio facing the street and cornered there.

“Seeing as you are such fans of public displays, you can remain there until nightfall and don’t even think about moving.”

Pam would have begged for a session with the harsh to escape this shame, but she knew her father was only being just. She just wished she could regroup her dignity and stop crying. I bet that bitch Jessica will love this, she sobbed to herself.

*

James and Reverend Martin stood on the cliff top watching as Severus began to occlude the setting sun. The half-light reflected off Raw’s sister planet would insure that there would be no full dark this night. The two men stood in hushed silence and as the Reverend wondered if he could get used to the sight, James who had seen it all his life, knew he never would.

“If god has not laid his hand upon this planet then there is no god,” Rev Martin breathed. “How can I speak for this when I am nothing beside it?”

“It speaks for itself, it needs no other voice,” James said simply.

“Yes. I had to come here to realise that. All those years of closed-eyed mumbling and the truth was before me all the time.”

“Reverend, why do you never use first names after you marry?”

Reverend Martin laughed.

“What is so funny?” James joined his friend in his mirth.

“I don’t know,” the reverend could barely get his words out.

“You don’t know why it’s funny or you don’t know why you don’t use your first name?”

“Both.” The reverend said seriously, but smiled. “My name is John.”

“Hello John, pleased to meet you.”

“Is there a place for us here? As citizens I mean?”

“I knew you would ask when you were ready. I have already spoken to the elders. They seem to think you might make a good student of philosophy and lecture at the university. I think you will be accepted as an optimate.”

“It will be hard on Jessica and my wife.”

“Jessica will learn, I can see that. As for your wife, there are no laws that govern a relationship between a man and a woman. That is for you to work out.”

“Any tips on how I should handle Jessica?”

“Oh I think there I can help you John.”

The next day Jessica came down to breakfast and saw the hairbrush on the table. She fixed it with a stare for the longest time and then she finally asked.

“I haven’t seen that for a while. Don’t you think I am a little old for that?”

“A little old for what?” John said quietly.

“It rather looks like you were planning on spanking me.” Jessica swallowed and licked her lips nervously.

“Do you think you deserve a spanking?”

“I… I only went swimming, they allow it here, I was discreet until…”

“It isn’t exactly allowed, it is sometimes tolerated. And anyway do you wish to be judged by our rules or theirs?”

“I… I don’t know. What difference does it make? I have to go back to be the dull wife of some dull little man who has never lived.”

“What if we were to stay?”

Jessica forgot her fear as her face lit up and she allowed herself to hope.

“Father can we?”

“Your mother is not convinced but she will stay if you do.”

“Oh yes, oh yes please,” Jessica gushed.

“James Mentis suggested that I chastise you with a familiar implement to begin with.”

“Chastise? You mean you are going to spank me?” The trepidation returned and Jessica again eyed the hairbrush on the table.

“I think you deserve one, don’t you?”

“For swimming nude?” Jessica found a defiant tone for her question.

“For betraying your friends.”

“They are not…” Jessica fell silent and looked down chewing her lip.

“They will be if we stay. Besides haven’t you been trying to get them to notice you since we arrived?”

Jessica shrugged. Then added: “I won’t be tucked.”

“Yes you will young lady and cornered.” Her father put some edge into his voice.

“Can’t I…? Can’t we…?” Jessica didn’t add ‘talk about this,’ from his face she could see that her father had already spoken.

John crooked his finger and summoned her to his lap. She went over easily defeated, not daring to remember how long it had been for her. When she didn’t raise her own skirts, her father obliged.

He was shocked to see that she was observing the local custom by wearing no underwear, quite literally Raw beneath her skirt.

He brought the hairbrush down hard with a flick of his wrist. The loud splat was satisfying and she gasped a little at the impact. A red oval patch appeared almost at once and was quickly joined by another. Jessica made some small kicks with her feet, which became more animated as the spanking went on. However, she made no other sign of resistance.

John spanked his daughter slowly and hard, watching her carefully as she slowly melted and tears welled up in her eyes. But still he spanked on until she began to breath heavily and instinctively push against his lap. Finding no purchase, she gripped at the lower legs of his chair and began to groan a little.

Among the righteous, they baptised with water and as Jessica began to sob and her tears flowed in earnest John noted that Jessica’s rebirth was being marked with fire and water, the fire being lit in her bottom.

“Daddy,” she wailed, clawing wildly at the chair legs.

“Hush, we have a long way to go,” John said soothingly as he spanked on.

*

The mail delivered by a young girl pushing a handcart that was not much bigger than a wheelbarrow. The girl herself was pretty, but wore very short-cropped hair under her small beanie style hat. The other thing that Rachel noticed was that the girl wore no skirt to speak of. Instead, the tunic she wore doubled as a very short dress that left her exposed behind as she laboured to push the cart onto the patio.

At first Rachel thought she was naked below the waist until she realised that the girl was wearing very clinging pale tights, the only time she had seen leggings of any sort on a woman since arriving on Raw.

“That girl,” Rachel asked Kim, “is she a slave?”

Kim turned to look.

“Not entirely, an enforced bondsman no doubt. The mail service uses such people as they are often educated.”

“Such people?”

“Oh she has probably committed a serious crime and has been sentenced to public service for a year or so. It beats street cleaning no doubt.” Then looking again she added, “oh yes, I do remember her. A court clerk who ‘lost’ some evidence in return for a bribe. I think she got seven years for perverting justice. A very unusual case.”

Rachel watched as the woman dropped something off at the box and then turned to move on. On her home world, the girl would have been made a joy-girl to entertain the men or even executed. Here she had been found employment that used at least some of her skills.

A short while later Kim informed Rachel that one of the letters was for her. Suddenly she was nervous. The envelope bore a Matriarch diplomatic seal. She returned to her room before opening it and even then, she did not read it for several minutes. Why, she didn’t know. But some instinct told her life was about to change.

The sub-heading on the notepaper proclaimed that the letter was an order from internal security. Rachel felt her stomach clench.

“Arrangements have been made for your return to the home world. You and your assistants will report to the embassy at the capital at once,” was all it said.

There were three special passes that allowed her passage to the capital.

“Was it the answer you expected?” Abraham was at her door.

“Yes. I know now, that it was. I have been asking too many of the wrong questions, but internal security? They think I am a threat.” Then she started to cry and ran to Abraham’s arms.

“You have some thinking to do and decisions to make,” he said hugging her.

“Decisions?”

“Whether to stay or go.”

“Stay? I don’t understand.”

“It can be arranged for all three of you, if that’s what you want.”

“Asylum you mean?”

“No,” he spoke with an edge. “It is a big choice you make. As citizens of the Matriarch, you have to leave. As citizens of Raw, I can protect you. But you must accept all the terms of being a citizen. It will be a huge choice for one such as you.”

“What about us?”

“No.” His face was as if a wall to her.

She heaved a suppressed sob and pulled away.

“You have to choose between Raw and the Matriarch first,” he continued. “I will not be a life boat for you. You must see a way to embrace a life on Raw for its own sake or else you will be more a slave to me than any crop-haired whipping girl.”

She nodded. “I will speak to the girls.”

“Very well, I will give you some space and time to think.” Abraham’s mouth was a tight line and with a terse nod, he left.

Rachel went immediately to find Sandy and Penny, but found their rooms empty. In fact, there was no sign that they even spent much time there. The books on their desks had a layer of dust and picking up Penny’s journal, she saw that she had not written anything for weeks.

Beside Penny’s bed she found a stack of books, which at first glance seemed to have nothing in common and very little to do with the set reading. She flicked through a couple. They were all works native to Raw or classics from old Earth. Then she began to see a theme. The manual of household management was well thumbed at the pages relating to traditional spanking techniques. The case studies on the benefits of judicial correction spoke for themselves. There were also copies of Justine, the Tutor’s Bride and the Russell Corner.

Leaving the wing where the three of them lived, Rachel started searching the house and grounds. She eventually found the girls in the stable yard. Dilly was cheerfully regaling them with anecdotes of bondsmanship, which seemed to centre on chastisements given and received.

The backdrop to this impromptu seminar was the well-thrashed bare bottom of one of the stable girls held in headstocks.

“I trust you can spare me a moment.” Rachel’s voice made them both jump.

“I know that tone. Have you girls been up to something?” Dilly said light-heartedly.

“We were just…” Sandy looked decidedly sheepish.

“Never mind we have a decision to make and we have to make it today.” Rachel drew them aside into an empty horse stall and told them about the order.

“But why?” Penny wailed.

“We have stumbled onto state secrets. The DNA engineering.” Sandy was white.

“More to the point we… I have been indiscreet in asking questions,” Rachel amended. “They had to know we would find out.”

“They don’t give a stuff about Raw, except for what it can supply them in biotech. Oh my god.” Sandy clapped her hand to her mouth.

“Exactly, we were guinea pigs. Sent to test the water on public reaction to limited age-suppression.” Rachel was pleased that Sandy did have a mind.

“I don’t understand.” Penny looked blankly from one of her friends to the other.

“They are going to shut us up. If we are lucky we will be discredited and spend the rest of our lives as professional cock-suckers, but I am guessing we will have an accident on the way home,” Sandy explained patiently.

“I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here,” Penny pouted.

“We have no choice but to stay here, if they will let us,” Sandy was shouting now.

“Oh.” Penny went quiet, trying to take it in.

Rachel chose her moment. “Abraham says we can stay. But we have to accept full citizenship. Either pass their exams and prove we have the smarts to be useful academics here or…”

“Serve a bond for seven years,” Sandy finished for her.

“It’s two or three periods of bond service isn’t it? So that we learn a trade or save money or something,” Penny said tentatively. “But does that mean?”

“Oh for god’s sake girl,” Rachel replied. “This is what it means.”

With those words, she grabbed Penny and hauled he rover her lap. Sandy watched on in apprehension as Rachel flipped up Penny’s skirt to bare her bottom.

“No underwear I see,” Rachel commented. Same as me, she smiled to herself.

Penny had a good bottom. It was well defined and stood out well in profile. Rachel slapped it hard.

“Omigosh.” Penny gasped.

“You are such a lazy stupid girl. I have been wanting to do this since we first arrived on this planet.”

“Ooh… owww!” Penny’s embarrassed protest turned to a yelp as the spanking began to emerge as the real deal.

“I think I’ll just go and…” Sandy began backing away.

“You stay right there Cassandra Sands. You are definitely next.”

Sandy swallowed and looked on in fascinated horror at Penny’s bottom, which was already a healthy red.

“Need a hand?” Dilly asked entering the stall.

“I can manage,” Rachel growled as she exerted herself.

“Here use this.” Dilly handed Rachel a chafe. “Just flick your wrist and let gravity and that do the work.”

The stinging crack that followed Rachel’s first attempt brought a howl from Penny and caused Sandy to jump out of her skin.

“Much better thanks.”

The spanking was a long one. Rachel had a lot to get out of her system. When she was done, Dilly led the sobbing girl to a corner in the yard without being asked. Then Rachel turned her attention to Sandy.

“Look I am not sure about this. You’ve got no right,” Sandy began to babble as she backed away.

“On Raw I have every right and I am very sure I want to do this.”

Sandy was still wearing her underwear, but she was quickly denuded and the scarp of cloth was discarded onto the stable floor.

“How am I doing?” Rachel asked Dilly.

“Quite well, but they are women grown, I think you went a little easy on the other one,” Dilly replied.

“Then let’s see if I can do better.”

The yard was soon ringing with Sandy’s distress, which Abraham could hear all the way up at the house.

*

The day before Jessica had stood for the greater part of the afternoon in stony silence with her skirts tucked over her bare bottom and her nose to the corner. It had been particularly hard to bear as her father had sat down with James Mentis to play afternoon chess not 10 feet from where she stood. Especially when the main topic of conversation was her and her punishment.

The next day she was also to remain tucked and to make matters worse her father sent her with a note to the hetman’s house.

“Daddy please I can’t go out like this,” she had pleaded. “Mother please don’t let him make me.”

“Your father has made some hard choices for us. Good choices. I understand you agreed with him.”

“Yes but…”

“Then daughter you must steel your heart and walk the path you have chosen.”

“Yes mother.” Jessica knew her mother was right, but it was the hardest thing she had ever had to do.

At the gate to the hetman’s house she was met by Pam, Clare and Chloe going out.

“We heard you were spanked?” Pam said neutrally.

“Oh look she has been tucked,” Chloe exclaimed with joy.

Jessica tried not to cry, but a tear escaped her eye and ran down her cheek.

“Go on laugh,” she said bitterly.

“We are not laughing trust me,” Clare said sardonically and turned to show that she too had been tucked. Jessica gasped. Her bottom had had a holiday compared to Clare’s swollen backside.

Then one by one the other two turned to display similar honours.

“Mother has an errand for us,” Clare said glumly.

Pam looked as if she wanted the ground to open up.

“At least I only have to go as far as your father and he had a good view yesterday,” Jessica said with newfound sympathy.

“Are you grounded?” Chloe gushed.

“No. Just eh… tucked.”

“After you have seen father meet us at the cove,” Pam said.

“But we don’t dare.” Jessica was horrified.

“I have a hunch that if anyone finds out, it will be overlooked. If not,” Pam shrugged. “Welcome to Raw.”

*

It had been some weeks since Rachel had received the summons to return to the home world, but it felt like a thousand years. I was another woman, she thought as she wandered up the beach with Abraham.

“What are you thinking?” He asked.

“Oh nothing,” she replied smiling. Then added, “it was kind of you to adopt Sandy and Penny as your wards. I hope you won’t regret it.”

“Oh it was nothing. They are still young enough to get into an academy for young women. They will learn much there. They might even get into university.”

“Will they really be spanked at this school of yours?”

“Every day probably. Knowing them. Their arrogant lazy days are over.”

“What about me? Are my arrogant lazy days over? I can’t go on being your house guest forever.”

“I never thought of you as lazy. You are sure you don’t want to try for an academic post?”

“Thanks, I think, but seriously, anthropology and sociology? I want to live it, not study it. Besides your academic contact wasn’t too hopeful.”

“Then you will have to enter bonded service.” Abraham let the words hang.

“Yes I was afraid of that.” Rachel grimaced and rolled her eyes.

“Why don’t you come and work for me? I need someone who knows how the Matriarch thinks.”

“Isn’t that a job for one of your optimates?”

“Not at all. I don’t need that level of help. I just need someone who understands what they are reading enough to file it correctly.”

“A secretary you mean?”

“Nothing as grand as that. An apprentice clerk.”

“You mean I would be a junior bondswoman in your house?”

Abraham shrugged.

“Does that mean you will get to spank me?” She teased.

“Naturally.”

“I was joking.”

“I wasn’t.”

Rachel’s mouth hung open and she looked away. Of course, she knew that.

“Sometimes I think all this nature stuff is a con. I mean I agree that the oppression of the Matriarch is wrong, but on Raw all the men are in charge, whatever they say about exceptions and choice, and the women all love it and pretend to go along with it.”

“I have never heard an explanation of the natural order put so succinctly.”

Rachel poked her tongue out at him and turned to watch Severus rising. She had never been so happy.

“Will you press charges?”

“Charges?” Rachel turned back puzzled.

“You are not my bondswoman yet, as a guest, you are technical a freeman. So when I spank you, I will be technically breaking the law.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Of all the stupid things she could say, she realised as she turned and broke into a run.

He grinned and began to chase her.

“Please, Abraham not here, I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He caught her easily and turned her over his lap as he sat on a beach boulder.

“Abraham someone will see,” she squealed.

As he turned up her skirt, he saw that she was natural underneath, the Raw way. He also saw that she had the most magnificent bottom he had see since his wife had died.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god…” Rachel was scarcely aware of her mantra as she tried to pull her skirts back down.

“I don’t think the fine will be too high. You did after all disrespect a high councillor and I am after all, your future employer.”

His hand stung her bottom as she tried vainly to protect it.

“If you don’t remove your hand I will spank you again with a chafe and set you in the corner when we get home.”

“You can’t do this you bastard,” she wailed ignoring his threat.

“So be it,” he sighed. “I know someone who will eat supper standing up.”

Then he began spanking her hard, determined not to stop until Rachel had submitted.

“Alright, alright I get the point.”

“And the point is?”

“I’ll do what you say.”

“Good. I say you need a little more spanking.”

*

“Are you quite sure that Jessica will be alright at this school?” Mrs Martin asked for the tenth time.

“Helen, I wish you wouldn’t fuss so,” John smiled and took his wife in his arms.

“I can’t get used to being called Helen again,” she hugged back.

“A lot of things have been better between us lately.”

“Yes.” She smiled as he stood behind her and rocked her in his arms as they stood on the upper porch at the sunset.

“Just the two of us again,” John whispered, hoping she would take the hint.

“Just the two of us and that girl,” Helen said grumpily, the spell broken. “Did you really have to spank her? I mean it’s embarrassing having a half naked girl standing in the corner of your house.”

“I wouldn’t have to spank her if you took your new position here seriously.”

“I couldn’t spank her, I just couldn’t. We didn’t spank in our house. I wouldn’t know how,” Helen lied.

“You have never been spanked? I didn’t know that,” John said, knowing it for an untruth. “I wondered why you were so curious.”

“Curious? What do you mean?”

“Ever since we arrived here, you have been fascinated by the fact that wives are spanked here.”

“I…” Helen blushed and pulled away.

“You wouldn’t lie to me now would you?” He teased.

“No,” she said in a small voice and hid her face.

“Come on, look me in the eye,” he took her face in her hands and tried to recapture the earlier mood.

“No, go away.” She was using her little girl’s voice, he hadn’t heard in years.

“Behave now or I’ll have to spank you.” Where did that come from, he wondered?

“You wouldn’t, would you?” He fancied he could hear hope in her voice.

“Fetch the chafe,” he ordered.

“Oh not here, please the girl.”

It was going to happen then, his heart was pounding, another first then in his new home.

“Take me to our room, please John.” She waited to see what he would say. It was up to him and that idea excited her more than she thought possible.

“In the inner courtyard then, but just this once. But you will be tucked and then I want to see you in that corner.”

Her mouth hung open in wonder and her eyes found his and held them for the longest time. Then she said: “Yes John.”

*

Rachel had signed the bond papers only a week before and had been given a stack of books to read by Kim.

“Abraham’s family history, the history of Raw and books about my ideas on how a bonded girl should deport herself,” Kim explained. “There are also some novels, which you might enjoy.”

“Thank you, that is very kind.”

“Thank you that is very kind, ma’am. And I am glad you think so, you may change your views.”

“Sorry. Thank you ma’am.”

Abraham had already spanked her twice, although she had yet to be tucked in public. Yet, the realisation set worms wiggling in her belly.

The first spanking had stung, but had been otherwise playful, almost to welcome her to the house. The second had been in earnest and she had cried and had gone on crying for an hour as she stood in the corner of the outer courtyard, her first taste of humility.

She had addressed her new employer as Abraham and talked over him as he corrected her. She learnt, although she already knew, both the difference between knowing and learning, and that although she should refer to Abraham by name, she should address him always as sir or your honour.

Rachel blushed again as she remembered. She still hadn’t got used to the mark on her bottom either. Having to bend over in the outer courtyard while a stranger from the village marked her bare bottom had been a right of passage.

The first time he had spanked her afterwards, Abraham had longed to see it removed from her right cheek and placed on her left, but there was time enough for that.

Rachel knew none of this. She was on her first proper errand to buy stationary in town. She felt very self-conscious in a skirt that was short even by Matriarch standards, especially as the slightest breeze threatened to reveal her nakedness beneath. However, strangely less people turned to stare now. Her hair was growing out more and she supposed that a shorthaired bondsman was a more common sight than a cropped optimate, as she had been.

Before she had left on her errand, Kim had taken her to one side and made a point of telling her not to dawdle.

“You work for Abraham only in the afternoons, this morning I have more mundane chores for you.”

“Yes ma’am.” She had said, still unused to showing deference. However, once in town Kim’s words were soon forgotten.

The shops were wonderful, real old style. She wished that she had visited them before. It was like a bazaar from an old Earth movie. There was even a shop that sold every kind of spanking and whipping implement imaginable complete with a girl to test them out on. She looked quite sullen and Rachel realised she was a slave. For some reason she got a buzz being in the same room as a real slave.

The whole experience was like living in a movie. Once she found the stationers, she did another turn of the market. I can always say I got lost, she thought. Back home for lunch and then Abraham.

Kim was furious. Rachel patiently explained that she didn’t know the town very well yet and when Kim got angrier, the tardy bonds-girl began the explanation over as if lecturing a student.

Kim shushed her suddenly and reached out gently and seized Rachel by her ear. Rachel fell silent with surprise.

“Let me tell you how it is,” Kim began. “Firstly I don’t care if everything you say is upheld by a judge in court. I am mistress of your fate in this house. Secondly, do you imagine that after more than 30 years in service I haven’t heard every dodge and wheeze by a chit of a girl like you? I don’t believe you. Thirdly, if you ever, and I mean ever, speak to me like that again, I will strip you, whip you and see to it that your bottom will clench in dread every time you even look at a chair over the next year.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean…”

“Shut up,” Kim bellowed.

Rachel jumped and stepped back.

“Do you know where the common chafes are kept?” Kim’s tone was efficient.

“Eh… yes. Eh… yes ma’am.”

“Eh. Well Eh, go and fetch one,” Kim mocked.

“But…”

“Now.” The wind chime vibrated at Kim’s shout.

“Yes ma’am.” Rachel hurried off.

It was so humiliating to be made to fetch a spanking implement, to scare her no doubt, but Abraham would use it later, she just knew it. It was so unfair.

Rachel returned with the chafe, which she had chosen without care from a hook in the closet, and handed it to Kim.

“Tuck yourself,” Kim commanded.

Rachel’s jaw dropped, then she obeyed. This is the best blush yet, she thought as she cringed before her tormentor.

Kim pulled a spanking throne away from the wall and sat on it. Rachel baulked, Kim was actually going to spank her.

The chatelaine tipped the reluctant servant over her lap easily and then transferred the chafe to her right hand.

“When I am done here you will stand at a penitent station on the front patio facing the street, not the side mind you. You will remain tucked, you will remain there,” the last word was growled with emphasis, “for the rest of the day. Then for the rest of the week you will remain tucked and you will work as a scullion for me. And…”

“But Abraham…” Rachel whined from her humiliating position over Kim’s lap.

“Don’t interrupt me,” Kim bellowed. “Abraham doesn’t want you until you have been trained, so have a care my high and mighty clerk, you may not get office work for a while yet.”

She let that sink in as Rachel surprised herself by shedding some tears. Then she continued. “As I was saying, if I have to spank a red-bottomed girl, I use the hazer, at least. And believe me girl you will be red for a week, so your chances are not good.”

Then the spanking began, hard and fast, but above all unrelenting. Kim had itched to do this since Rachel had arrived and saw which way the wind was blowing. The girl would make Abraham a fine wife and in time, Kim may find their positions reversed. But that was no excuse to stint on the girl’s education.

“Please Kim… ma’am, ow,” Rachel’s pleading collapsed with an angry retort.

“You don’t have to ask, I am happy to oblige.”

“Nooo.”

Kim was in no hurry. Already a bright red rash had enveloped the lower circle of Rachel’s full spherical bottom. After some minutes, Kim was confident that she could soon spread hue to include the whole bottom as a prelude to deepening the colour. She paid particular attention to where the girl sat, an action that also extracted the loudest yelps.

“Please ma’am, I’m sorry,” Rachel began to sob in earnest.

Just then there was a movement by the door. Kim looked up to see Helen Martin standing there.

“Oh, I’m… ah sorry, but the door was open. I was just…” Helen pointed over her shoulder and backed away. Then mouthed timidly, “I’ll just go then.”

“It’s this stupid girl, she left it open, I’m just breaking her in, please your honour, come in.”

Rachel suddenly realised who it was that was witnessing and wanted to die.

“Go to the corner, I’ll finish this later,” Kim snapped.

Rachel was dumped on the floor where she clutched her bottom crying.

“Move girl and no rubbing.”

Helen Martin tried not to smile as Rachel scurried out. Not so superior now are we, she thought, her glee clouded only a little by the realisation that her turn could come all too soon.

It was sometime later that Helen Martin left. Rachel had brought her crying under control, but not the insistent throbbing where she sat. She couldn’t decide what was worse, having to stand with her nose in the corner until her back ached or having to stand at the street side. Helen, no her honour, Mrs Martin’s reappearance left her in no doubt.

Helen paused to take in Rachel’s shame. She had mixed feelings and some of them were of sympathy.

“This world is rather hard on ones bottom isn’t it Ms Helicon. Yours looks decidedly Raw.” She tittered at her own unintended pun.

Although at that moment it had rather more resemblance to Severus as it rose over the horizon, big red and round, which is what mine will be like if I am late home, she thought ruefully.

“Please, Mrs Martin, your honour, don’t laugh, I’ll just die,” Rachel whispered miserably, knowing it was a spanking offence to talk.

“We won’t die, we’ll live, both of us. You’ll see,” Helen whispered offering sincere friendship she realised, then she added, “I hope the rest of your spanking isn’t too hard. Well, actually that is a lie, I ought to be spanked myself.”

The rest, Rachel wailed inwardly, oh god yes, Kim had said something about that hadn’t she. Suddenly she found herself hoping that she would be in the corner a little longer. That wish at least came true.

Ends.