“I don’t see why you shouldn’t bring your friends over as planned honey. After all it’s not your fault.” Dana broke off from applying her lipstick for a moment and glanced at her youngest daughter, Dakota, who was standing in the corner.

Freya followed the direction of her mother’s look. Darn the little brat she thought, feeling not the least sympathy for her sister’s shiny red bottom.

“Can’t you just send her to her room?” Freya asked pleadingly.

“You know the house rules honey,” Dana said casually, putting the final touches to her make-up. “How do I look?”

“You look just great Mom,” Freya said unenthusiastically.

“No I don’t do I?” Dana grinned as she checked herself out in the mirror. “I don’t look a day over 30.”

She didn’t as well Freya thought.

“Well 41 anyway, Mom,” she said.

Dana leaned over and gave Freya a swat on her behind. It was an old joke with them.

“So are you having the girls over while I’m out?” Dana continued.

Dakota began to pray. She begged fervently to the god of the north wall of their house that Freya wouldn’t be so cruel.

“I had better not,” Freya sighed.

“Your call. See you later girls.” Dana snatched up her keys from the kitchen top. “And Dakota dear. You are to stay there until 9.30 and then straight to bed. I really hope I don’t hear that you did anything different.”

“You little brat,” Freya sneered at her sister bitterly after her mother had gone. “I mean smoking in Main Street? What a dork.”

“I didn’t know Mom would be out shopping did I?” Dakota’s tone was sullen and half-hearted.

“I have a good mind to go ahead with my plans,” Freya countered.

It wasn’t that she had any sympathy per se, Freya thought. But there was an unspoken agreement between the girls. No friends over when one of them was in jug. After all even though Freya was 20 now, next time it could very well be her in the corner.

The 18-year-old in the corner didn’t respond. One word from Freya and her life could become a living hell in oh so many ways. Not least, she could claim Dakota broke out of the corner ahead of time. And there was still the girls’ night in.

Once before, when they had been younger, Freya had sent Dakota to her room so she could have a boyfriend over. Even though her sister had another hour and a half corner time to serve. Mom had come home early.

Boyfriend was still there when the spanking commenced and the next two nights had been a bitch for both sisters. No. A postponement was the only safe thing to do.

*

Dana looked at her watch, just time to finish her evening shopping. Then with one final look at the house she drove off.

Dana always kept a nonchalant air around the subject of spanking in front of her girls, but as she drove away, she was fully aware of Freya’s dilemma, she admired her daughter’s wisdom and foresight in this.

When she had been of a similar age she had been only too pleased to find ways to humiliate her sisters, with not a thought to the fact that they would only reciprocate in kind when their chance came.

Sometimes girls never learn though, she chuckled to herself. Such petty revenge often backfired. She remembered one time that her elder sister Hope, had been spanked for coming home late form a date. Their mother had spanked her silly the next day right there in the family room with Grandma, Aunt Glenda and assorted cousins in attendance.

Hope had looked a picture of woe standing sans culets in the corner. Brian and Pete, their cousins had certainly enjoyed the spectacle of the shamed half-nude 19-year-old so humbly displayed.

“Man her face is even redder than her bottom,” the 17-year-old Brian had remarked.

Shortly afterwards Dana had got a phone call from some of her girl friends. Not only had she declined an invite to go out, but she had insisted that they come over.

That was mistake number one.

Having people drop by was one thing, taking upon yourself to arrange extra punishment for a sister was borderline mischief. Doing it when you already had a houseful of relatives was playing with fire. That was mistake number two.

“That girl is getting too big for her boots,” Grandma had said. “Not too old for a spanking herself.”

At 18, Dana would have liked to disagree, but big sis was evidence that it weren’t so.

When they arrived, the girls had been suitably impressed with Dana’s treat and had joined the younger boys in a round of teasing. Grandma’s steely stare should have been warning enough. Then Candy opened her big mouth.

“My, I do believe Hope is looking a little sick. She looks like Belinda Yates did last Saturday after drinking nine shots.”

Dana darted a glance at Grandma in case she had heard. Alcohol was a big no-no.

“Last Saturday?” Mom perked up. “Shots. You said you went to the theatre, didn’t you?”

“Candy is thinking of another time…” Dana said quickly, hoping the shots would be overlooked.

“Me and my big mouth,” Candy grinned. “I forgot we were supposed to be at the theatre. Anyway no biggy.”

Thanks Candy, Dana groaned inwardly.

“Bridget O’Leary if you don’t spank that girl at once I’ll spank you both,” Grandma scolded.

Bridget O’Leary had been Dana’s mother’s name before she married. Dana guessed it had been the domestic battle cry.

Dana remembered how her mother had blushed at the spanking threat before a mess of teenagers.

“I can handle this Mom,” her mother had growled.

“I can explain,” Dana had wailed as she was hauled over the maternal lap.

The ensuing spanking had been a treat for the gathered family and friends. Dana’s shorts had only just beaten her panties to her ankles as her bottom was bared.

Then the hairbrush had done its work.

“Don’t think you have heard the last of this my girl,” her mother had hissed.

It wasn’t of course. After spending the afternoon in the corner standing next to Hope, Dana had got an additional spanking for the shots.

It was no comfort to know that Candy had later got the same. Girls are so stupid, Dana laughed at the memory.

As she arrived at the mall, she pondered on the irony, maybe some things never change. Her husband would certainly have something to say about this little trip if he found out. But there was nothing for it; she needed a new dress for the upcoming PTA benefit dinner.

*

Dakota felt quite the fool as she stood in the corner. Freya was only a year older than her, it was too much to be held in such a shaming posture. Still it could be worse. Freya could easily have invited her gang over and then her life wouldn’t have been worth living.

“Couldn’t I just turn round at least to watch TV? I could turn right back the moment Mom came home.” Dakota wheedled.

“You can do what you like, but you know I can’t lie to Mom. It’s your butt.”

Freya was being literal. She couldn’t tell a decent lie at the best of times but she had never been able to lie to her mother. Heaven knows it had cost her enough sore bottoms to learn that.

Dakota tilted her head back and let out a heavy breath, her sister was right.

Ten minutes later she was still trying to think her way out the corner when she heard the front door open.

“Hello the house,” came her Dad’s cheery call.

“Hi Dad,” Freya said without looking up from the pages of her magazine.

“Oh,” came the weary reply. “What has she done now?”

Freya thought it best not to reply. Double spankings were not unheard of and smoking was her Dad’s pet peeve.

“Dakota?” He asked. “Do I even want to know?”

“Hi Dad,” Dakota replied a little morosely and muffled by the wall in front of her face.

“Hello Dakota,” John Guinness said dryly. Then he shook his head and walked wearily to his favourite chair.

“Can I get you some tea or coffee Dad?” Dakota asked hopefully. She could almost feel the sharp look by way of reply.

Partly out of mischief to block her sister’s lame exit plan and partly to stave off her father’s displeasure at the fact that she even tried, Freya pushed the magazine away.

“I’ll get you something Dad.”

“Coffee thanks Pumpkin.”

“I see the team bombed again,” John sighed picking up his newspaper, “by the way where’s your mother?”

“Out,” Freya shrugged. “She didn’t say where. Can I go now?”

“Sure honey,” John replied momentarily puzzled that she would ask. Then he remembered. “Oh sure, I’ll watch little miss mischief here. What she do anyway?”

Freya pulled a face as she put the coffee cup down.

“Dakota?” There was dark tone to her Father’s voice.

“I… eh… kinda… that is… well it’s like this…” Dakota began.

Freya slid out the front door with the curtest of goodbyes. This could turn ugly, she thought.

*

“Come on Frey, it will be neat,” Cassie urged.

“Oh come on, we haven’t done a mall snatch since, well I don’t know when. It’s kids stuff.” Freya remembered the last time they had quietly pocketed extra samples from the perfume stand. Her Mom had found quite a stash in back of her wardrobe and had treated her to a very imaginative punishment.

“Exactly, where is your spirit of adventure?”

“It’s stealing Cass,” Freya said with a groan.

“They are free samples. Since when is taking free stuff stealing?”

“It says customers are welcome to one free sample. One. Not as many as you can fit into your purse.”

“Yeah but, it doesn’t say one free sample only, does it? Besides what good is one small bottle of Mystique? You can only use it like once or twice and then it’s empty.”

“I think that’s the idea dummy. They want you to come back and buy some more of the shit.”

“Oh yeah, like that’s going to happen. Have you seen the price tag? One full-sized bottle comes in at about the same price I paid for my car.”

“Look let’s just take a couple each. That way if they see us they probably won’t say anything,” Freya suggested.

Back when she and Cassie had been 17, they had swiped a whole basket of Channel from the display stand. Abraham Heights Mall didn’t believe in cameras and when a kid fight had kicked off out on the concourse they had taken their chance.

Freya’s mother had found several bottles months later. She may have even turned 18 by then, she seemed to remember.

“Freya Guinness what are you doing with these?” Dana had yelled.

Freya hadn’t even remembered at first.

“Oh those. They were on sale or something years ago. I forgot all about them.” Freya hadn’t seen the danger yet.

“On sale? But this many would cost… I don’t know, more than I could afford. You say these have been here years? Where did you get the money?”

“Well they were like free samples. We kinda boosted a few extra, it’s no sweat. Just kids stuff.”

“You kind of boosted a few extra? There must be… what two dozen? And how many have you used already? You must have cleaned them out. Boosted. I think you mean stealing young lady.”

“It was last year Mom. You know I was just a kid,” Freya had a sinking feeling, it was bad enough still getting spanked at 18, but getting it for something you did a zillion years ago was crazy-ass shit. But yet here was Mom reaching for the hairbrush.

“Come on Mom…”

“Get those slacks down and the panties. You know what’s coming,” Dana was furious.

Freya hastened to obey, she knew a lost cause when she saw it. Worse, stealing meant Dad might have more to say later. A talk from Dad was the worst as he did all his talking with his belt. She hadn’t thought until that minute that what she had done was stealing.

Freya eyed the open door and blushed. Please god let Dakota be out, she prayed. Dakota was still a brat and at that time hadn’t learned to keep her mouth shut at school when it came to family spankings.

As Dana looked down on Freya’s womanish bare bottom, she harboured a few memories of her own around the matter of stealing. The brush came down with a heavy flick.

“Yah,” Freya yelped, this was going to be a good one.

And it had been. Dana had spanked her for a lifetime and a week. For a time the spanking had stolen her thought processes, but then she glanced up at Dakota in the door grinning like a cat. Freya’s nose was running a little and the tears were cascading off her chin. She could almost hear her sister’s mind formulating the juicy story she would tell at school.

Then things had gotten decidedly worse. Dana had added a long volley with the bristle side of the brush to her bare bottom.

“I’m sorry Mom,” she wept.

“Just a minute young lady we’re not done. So you like perfume do you?”

Then one by one, Dana had opened the remaining bottles and poured out the contents onto Freya’s stinging bottom. At first Freya thought she had gone crazy, but then the real burn set in. It had been like being spanked all over again and then some.

Afterwards Freya had been set in the corner. The smell was overpowering. It lasted long after the acid burn in her bottom had faded to a mute throbbing. Then she had smelled of Channel for days after. Her rep at school had been blown for months. Especially after Dakota supplied some details.

“A whole new meaning to stink-butt,” Cassie had observed as she wrinkled her nose up.

Freya still couldn’t bear the smell of Channel.

The chink of glass at the counter brought Freya back to the present.

“I thought you said we would only take a couple,” she hissed.

“No you said that, not me,” Cassie replied as she helped herself to fistful of sample bottles.

Freya made an angry gesture to the air and half-heartedly picked up a couple of small bottles.

“Get more than that,” Cassie urged as she looked around conspiratorially.

Freya reluctantly grabbed two more and started to walk away.

“Hey, it’s just one per customer Miss,” the woman at the counter called over.

“Oh sorry,” Freya blushed, dropping the swag back into the basket.

That might have been the end of it but as she looked up she saw her mother looking down at her from the upper level. Freya’s jaw dropped. There was a look on her face that did not bode well for her daughter.

*

As Freya followed her mother into the house you could have cut the air with a knife. Dakota was sobbing in the corner and it was obvious that her father had gone to work some more with his belt.

Dana threw him a questioning look.

“I made young Dakota here a little promise as regards to smoking, didn’t I pumpkin?”

“Yes Dad,” Dakota sniffed.

“What’s up here?” John threw his head in a nod towards his other daughter.

“I made similar promises with regards to petty pilfering some time back. I think it’s time to collect,” Dana scowled.

“But Mom you don’t understand. I was just…”

“Do you remember the conversation we had last time?” Dana said simply.

“But really I didn’t…”

“Do you remember that conversation?”

Freya looked sideways and worked her mouth, then with one last futile attempt to shake an adequate explanation out, she rolled her eyes up and sighed: “yes.”

“Bring me your phone,” Dana said with an ominous finality.

Freya swallowed a little and a quizzical frown crossed her brow.

“My phone?”

Dana gave her a deadly look and began to scribble something on the kitchen pad.

Freya pulled her phone from her purse and handed it to her mother.

“You keep it for a minute. I want you to read this out and record it as your answer message.”

Freya took the note and scanned it. Then her mouth formed a perfect O.

“Oh Mom, look, you just can’t please.”

“Do it.”

“I won’t.” Freya threw the phone down and folded her arms.

“Very well,” Dana retorted snatching up the phone.

After extensive fiddling with the options and some muttered curses, Dana managed to find what she was looking for.

“To who it may concern. This is Freya’s mother. Freya is grounded until further notice. She has also been spanked. She will be spanked again in the open garage at the side of her house this coming Sunday at three. Thank you for your understanding.”

“Mom please,” Freya made a grab for the phone.

“Does that work with the phone off?” Dana asked, stepping back out of reach. “Dakota?”

Dakota nodded without speaking.

Dana turned the phone off and slipped it into her own purse.

“Now young lady. Get those slacks down we have some unfinished business.”

Freya considered begging, running and just about anything else, but instead she pulled a face like sour lemons and began to undo her pants belt.

“Honey, your mother is coming over later,” John offered. “Maybe this could wait.”

“I can see no reason why Mom shouldn’t see what happens to naughty girls in this house. After all, it isn’t something she hasn’t seen before.”

With a shrug, John made himself scarce. He had seen enough family disharmony today. As he left, a very bare-bottomed Freya was tipped over her mother’s lap there in the family room and the first swat had landed before he even reached the door.

“Come on Mom. I’m too old for this,” Freya wailed.

“I beg to differ young lady,” Dana growled as she set to with a rapid volley.

Out in the hall John was still distracted and tripped over Dana’s shopping bags. He was about to take them to the kitchen when he noticed they were clothes not food. The receipt on the top told an interesting story.

In the room Dana spanked on at one swat per second, which really lit a fire in Freya’s tail and set the tone for the next 10 minutes.

“Oh please Mom, it was all Cassie’s fault,” Freya wailed like a snivelling 12-year-old.

“You know the sad thing is I believe you. When are you going to grow up and stop listening to that brat?”

Dana applied her hairbrush to the sitting area with a will. The impacts lifting Freya’s bottom and pushing Freya forward so that she looked like she was trying to swim away.

“I’m sorry Mom, I’m sorry,” Freya boo-hooed.

“Oh look I missed a spot,” Dana replied, redoubling her efforts. “Now for the last time, don’t ever let me catch you stealing again or it will be more than just a hairbrush I spank you with and I might even sell tickets.”

At some point Freya’s panties and slacks were kicked across the room. Not that she needed them as immediately the spanking was over she was marched over to stand next to Dakota and warned with dark threats about the consequences of even thinking about moving her nose form the wall.

“And that goes for you as well,” Dana snapped at Dakota.

There was a ripple of applause behind her and Dana turned to see her husband standing there.

“Well done. There have been too many promises broken in this house by unthinking brats,” he said.

There was something about John’s expression that made Dana nervous.

“Yes smoking, stealing, it makes you wonder if we are doing something wrong,” Dana sighed.

“I know how you feel. Smoking, stealing, overspending on the card limit, buying dresses one doesn’t need after promises were made, you know, the usual thing.”

Dana saw the receipt in her husband’s hand and her heart deflated in her chest.

“Isn’t this where you say, ‘I can explain darling’?” John frowned. “Or ‘where ever did that come from’?”

“Ah.” Dana winced. “You’re not thinking what I think you are thinking are you?”

“And what would that be?”

“Maybe you are thinking that a little spanking might be in order?” Dana returned a sickly grin moved her hands behind her bottom.

“No of course not. I was thinking no such thing.” John pulled a mock sympathetic face. “A little spanking? No. I was thinking that a very sound spanking would be more appropriate.”

Dana blushed as she realised that her daughters were very much still in earshot.

“Can we take this upstairs?” Dana asked in a small voice.

Having taken of his sweater, John began to roll up his shirtsleeves.

“No.”

Dana made a bolt for the door but was intercepted halfway across the room. John manoeuvred her across his knee as he sat on the couch. Then he set about pulling up Dana’s loose skirts as she struggled to keep them down.

Once he had managed the folds into the small of his wife’s back, he hooked his thumb in the elastic of her underwear and slid her panties all the way down to her ankles.

“Please not in front of the girls,” Dana wailed.

“They have their backs turned, so it is hardly in front of them,” John chided.

“Please John I’m sorry,” Dana panicked a little.

“I think later, you will feel my belt. But I want you to take this on account.”

John gave her a smart wristy slap to her bare bottom, leaving a mark.

“As tight and neat as the day I married you,” John said in admiration as he studied her bottom.

“Ooh, you beast,” Dana squawked.

John let go with a full satisfying set of swats, admiring the way his wife’s bottom quickly went from white to a healthy red.

“Maybe I should try that brush,” he said, spanking her a little more.

“Don’t you dare.”

John hefted it for a moment and then with a nod tried it out for size.

“Yah,” Dana announced loudly.

“Much better,” John said with a grin.

For the next 15 minutes he set about giving Dana a spanking to rival the one she had just handed out to Freya.”

Dana didn’t resent it exactly. She knew she deserved it and had they been upstairs she would have looked forward to saying she was sorry. But getting spanked in the same room as your daughters was embarrassing. Not that they didn’t know he spanked her, but that was beside the point at that moment.

“Are we done?” John asked with a final swat.

“Yes sir,” Dana wept.

“Alright, off to face the wall with you,” John said, almost kindly.

“What?”

“Put your nose to the wall next to Freya,” John ordered. “Unless you want some more?”

“Yes sir,” Dana sniffed and hurried to stand between her daughters.

John surveyed the three reddened bottoms lined up against the wall and leaned back with a sigh.

“Nothing like good old family values,” he said expansively.

“Coo-ey,” someone called. John recognised his mother-in-law’s voice.

“Oh god John, send her away,” Dana gasped from her place at the wall.

“I offered to let you handle this later, besides it isn’t something she hasn’t seen before,” John said with a chuckle, throwing his wife’s earlier words back at her.

John got up to greet his guest only to see that his sister-in-law and the kids had arrived.

“I brought Hope, if you don’t mind,” Bridget said. “It’s OK I brought extra… oh my.”

“Have you just put down a rebellion or did they each manage a separate gig?” Hope began to giggle.

Dana and Freya were both thinking that things just could not get worse. Then the twins, who were fighting and spilled into the room. Oh but they could, Dana groaned inwardly.

“Aunt Dana,” the two 16-year-olds squealed together in surprise.

“Hush you two,” Hope said suppressing a smile and tried to sound stern. “It’s not like you two haven’t got the same before now.”

Dana cursed the PTA and all its evil works and wanted to melt away with her drying tears.

Freya could only think about the phone. Any chance of getting her mother into a good mood and letting her off that part was fast dissolving with each of her cousins’ giggles.

Please let this day end, she silently begged the universe. It was going to be a long evening.