Amanda was feeling very pleased with herself. The article was a triumph, she knew it. Anyway, how dare that over-privileged stuck-up socialite say such a thing about women?

“A good woman does not neglect her place and more especially if that place is with her children,” she quoted. “Bah.”

The woman was a traitor to her sex. Didn’t she know it was 1908? Women know your place, indeed. Well I’ll show her. Just wait until she sees the article.

Amanda Terry was 21 and far prettier than she would like. She sometimes thought she was too pretty to be taken seriously. Her unruly blonde curls would not be tamed even when pinned up and her hips, ‘good childbearing hips,’ her mother had said, were far too… well altogether too much and the less said about her behind, well… it had far too much to say for itself as it was.

Amanda had been a reporter for the Clarion for six months now, ever since she had graduated from Vassar cum laud in English. She had clawed her way up from the backwoods of Kentucky and now that she had finally reached the East, she was going to stay there. No man and certainly no fancy rich woman called Elisabeth Cabot was going to stop her.

Her self-rant over, she finally reached the house of Michael Wade, the editor. It was impressive and a long way from downtown where the Clarion office sat. She barely wondered why he wanted to see her, why wouldn’t he? Wasn’t she already his best reporter? He was no fool. Perhaps he wanted to congratulate her on the article.

She reached the door of the imposing house and rang the bell. Then she smoothed down her ankle-length hobble-skirt and drew herself up to her full height, which was just shy of five feet three.

The butler who answered the door was impassive.

“Miss Terry? You are expected in the drawing room,” he said, stepping back to allow her entrance.

Amanda strode past him with barely a nod, displaying an entitlement that only belonged to the very young and beautiful.

“The drawing room is to your left Miss,” the butler said from behind her, “Shall I announce… you?”

The last word was said to empty air; Amanda had gone.

“Apparently not,” the butler said sardonically and turning his eyes to heaven.

Amanda swept through the door to the drawing room smiling broadly.

“You wanted to see me…” She began, before her eyes fell upon Miss Elisabeth Cabot sitting on an overstuffed couch with her editor.

The well-turned out 28-year-old socialite was beautiful and delicately dressed in contrast to Michael Wade’s rugged handsome exterior. The butterflies launched in Amanda’s belly at the sight of him.

The line of his eyes and straight nose formed a determined T that complemented the soft grey dusting at his temples. Then she looked again at Miss Cabot with her modern take on haute couture and piecing blue eyes that were at odds with her raven hair.

“Michael? I didn’t know we were to have visitors,” Amanda said easily, quickly recovering herself.

“Amanda… eh… come in,” Michael said, “Eh yes, Miss Cabot is here about your article. She was rather concerned that you…”

“I bet she is. When everyone reads it, her pretentions…” Amanda began.

“Amanda, please sit down,” Michael said sternly.

“Sit down? With her? I’d rather…”

“Amanda,” Michael snapped. “Sit down.”

Amanda dropped into a chair as far from Elisabeth Cabot as she was able and glowered at her.

“Amanda, there isn’t going to be any article,” Michael said.

“I see,” Amanda said scornfully, “You have been got at by the great Cabot Empire. Michael, I am so disappointed in you. I thought…”

“Miss Terry, have you any idea how much damage such an article could do to women’s suffrage in this city?” Elisabeth said patiently.

“Damage? My article? What are you talking about? After what you said. Why my article will…”

“Not be published and that is final,” Michael said sternly. “It has nothing to do with Miss Cabot here. I had already decided to spike it. And will you stop calling me Michael. I am the editor, I do expect some respect.”

“Michael,” Amanda gasped. If she had been standing up, she would have sat down. “But she said…”

“I said, and I paraphrase, ‘a woman should not neglect her duty, wherever that may lie, especially if it concerns children.’ I did not say that women should not have the vote, or that they shouldn’t take their place in the world. But if people get the idea that marriages and children will suffer if women get the vote then it will do our cause no service.”

“What tosh. You mealy-mouthed… you hellion, you unspeakable traitor…”

“Amanda,” Michael exclaimed.

“How dare you accuse me of… how… why you over-privileged, self-satisfied…” Amanda continued.

“Amanda Jane Terry, be silent this instant,” Michael bellowed.

“I see Miss Terry has no manners and unfortunately, perhaps she is not as bright as she thinks she is,” Elisabeth said in a tone of disappointment.

“Manners… well I… Who are you to lecture me on manners, you supercilious, spoilt, self-satisfied…” Amanda blustered.

“You are in danger of repeating yourself my dear,” Elisabeth said dismissively. “If anyone here is self-satisfied and spoiled, it is you. You haven’t heard a word I have said have you. You are just carried away with your own cleverness. If you want to win at politics, then you have to play politics, not indulge in personal point scoring.”

Amanda leapt to her feet and swung an impotent fist.

“Why if you had been at my high school I would have…” Amanda was spitting mad and let her hometown accent leak into her vowels.

“If you had been at my school you would have had your draws taken down for a thorough application of the flat side of hairbrush to your bare bottom. That is how much I was spoiled,” Elisabeth said calmly. “In my opinion, you are not too old now.”

Amanda blushed and remembered her mother’s switch back in Kentucky. She also knew that Elisabeth was right, or at least she would have been in her mother’s opinion.

Perhaps seeing a spark of recognition in Amanda’s eyes, or perhaps because he had had enough with his young semi-competent employee Michael got to his feet and took a menacing step towards her.

“I thought I told you to sit down Amanda,” Michael growled.

“But Michael, she…” Amanda said sullenly.

“I also thought I told you not to call me Michael,” he said sharply.

“I shan’t and if you can call me Amanda then I can call you Michael, so there,” Amanda said with a pout.

“Is that a fact?” Michael intoned, fixing Amanda with a hard stare. “Putting aside for the moment that I am 42 and you are 21, I am your employer. You will call me Mr Wade or sir and you will sit down while you still can.”

“Michael I can’t see why…” Amanda wheedled.

Michael sighed and taking Amanda by the wrist smartly turned Amanda about and pulled down her over his knee.

“Michael,” Amanda exclaimed in surprise.

Michael ignored her and brought his hand sharply down on her ample seat extracted a pained wail from the girl.

“You can’t do this.” Amanda was shrill now and kicked her heels a little.

“Miss Terry I can and I will. I am going to spank your little bottom until its blue,” Michael sighed beginning to he spank her in earnest.

Elisabeth looked at the prominent circle of Amanda’s skirted bottom and cocked an eye at the word ‘little.’

“Ow,” Amanda exclaimed, risking a look at Elisabeth who was clearly amused. “Please Michael… ah!”

Michael had laid on more than two dozen swats when Elisabeth, sensing that Amanda was rather more robust than he realised, reached for the bell. Neither Michael nor Amanda heard it, engaged as they were in a punitive battle of wills, so Amanda was mortified when the butler arrived to witness her embarrassment.

“You… eh… rang?” He said adjusting his tie and casting a bemused glance at the spanking in progress.

“Yes…Thompson isn’t it?”

“Yes Miss Cabot,” he said officiously.

“Do you have such an item as a hall brush?” Elisabeth enquired.

“I believe we do, shall I fetch it?” The butler swallowed a smirk, his eyes darting again at Amanda.

“I think that would be prudent,” Elisabeth said.

The butler slipped away only to return in moments from the hall with a long ebony clothes brush.

“Excellent,” Elisabeth said. “Now Amanda… oh you may go Thompson, Amanda I think I know how your education might be improved still further.”

As Thompson left, Elisabeth handed Michael the brush and then set about adjusting Amanda’s clothing.

“What are doing?” Amanda was frantic now.

“I am showing you how it was done when I was little younger than you,” Elisabeth replied smoothly.

“Do you think that this is… well I mean to say…” Michael was suddenly flustered as Elisabeth set about denuding Amanda below the waist, finally drawing her thigh length bloomers down past her knees.

The marble white spheres of Amanda’s alabaster skin were marred only by two perfect red ovals adorning the crowns of her bottom.

“Oh God, Michael,” Amanda squealed and hid her face in her hands.

“Your approach doesn’t seem to have done the trick so far Mr Wade,” Elisabeth said tartly. “I suggest you now apply the brush. After all, you are a man of the world.”

“Eh… yes, yes of course,” Michael gathered himself and then tapped the flat side of the brush against Amanda’s bare bottom. “Michael is it?”

The brush struck with a crack that might have been heard in Kentucky and Amanda announced it heartily.

“Michael,” Amanda yelped and then as the next struck home she yipped out, “Sir.”

“Better,” Michael growled warming to his task.

The angry editor landed a volley that left Amanda panting hard suddenly rather more contrite.

“Oh please Elisabeth… Miss Cabot, stop him please. I’m so sorry. Maybe I was wrong but… ooh,” Amanda’s bluster was ended in a loud pained gasp.

“’Maybe I was wrong’?” Elisabeth quoted incredulously.

“I was wrong, I was wrong, please… please Sir,” Amanda wailed.

By now her bottom was full red all over with a rubbery welt at the cleft and swirling bruises in burgundy threatening to overwhelm both cheeks of her bottom.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I am so sorry, please,” Amanda broke to sobs and collapsed into a heap of girlishness over Michael’s lap.

“I think our young suffragette is cooked, don’t you Miss Cabot?” Michael said, setting a sobbing Amanda on her feet.

“Well,” Elisabeth said hesitantly, “There is the matter of her rudeness to me.”

“Oh please Sir, no more,” Amanda begged.

“You, be quiet. Go to the corner while the grown-ups talk,” Michael snapped.

Amanda scurried away obediently, tripping over her bloomers she went. She didn’t know whether to flee or rearrange her dress.

“At my school it was customary to leave the bottom bared until the punishment was concluded,” Elisabeth observed.

“Yes, quite right,” Michael agreed. “Leave those where they are and turn that pretty nose to the wall.”

“Oh Michael… Sir, oh please,” Amanda sobbed, but she obeyed and even with her head turned, they could see that her face was face red to her ears.

“Now Miss Cabot, can I offer you some light libation? I could call Thompson.”

“Ooh,” Amanda gasped at her place in the corner.

“If I wish to call my butler, then I will do so, so please be quiet,” Michael said impatiently. “Whatever would your mother say?”

“She would make me cut a switch,” Amanda said in a small faraway girlish voice.

“Oh really,” Elisabeth gushed, “Oh do tell.”

Much to both of their surprise, Amanda promptly recounted her mother’s procedure for punishments back on the farm, complete with the revelation that she was last switched thus less than a year before during her last semester at Vassar.

“I think I know how we can address our Miss Terry’s earlier rudeness,” Michael said archly.

“Oh no please,” Amanda pleaded, “I’m sorry, really I am, it’s just that… well…”

“Yes?” Elisabeth asked sharply.

Amanda turned from the wall to regard the two with wide woeful eyes and then she looked meekly away, “No excuse,” she mumbled.

“So you agree, you do deserve to go and cut me a switch?” Michael said sternly.

“I suppose,” Amanda said with a pout.

“And if I understand correctly, your mother would pin up your skirts and leave you bloomers down while you fetched your own switch,” Michael pressed her.

“Yes Sir,” Amanda whispered, “But please Sir…”

“Please Sir nothing, Miss Cabot if you will do the honours, then our young friend here can go and cut me a switch,” Michael said with authority.

“Yes Mr Wade.”

*

It had been a mortifying experience, but strangely comforting, to have to go and cut herself a switch from Michael’s garden. Especially since the whole while her bare bottom was on show and most of the servants had contrived to spy on her at her penitent chore.

She returned to the drawing room like a man to a hanging and with every step she prayed that Elisabeth had departed.

Sadly it was not to be and after another long wait in the corner, she was told to bend over the back of the couch with her bare bottom uppermost.

“Will you do the honours or shall I?” Michael asked Elisabeth. “After all you are the wronged party.”

“Oh I think she requires a man’s hand,” Elisabeth said with sincerity.

“Oh, but I thought you were in favour of women’s suffrage?” He replied.

“Oh I am Mr Wade, but the true nature of women’s liberation is that we are free to choose and I choose to leave such matters to men. Besides, right now, the only suffrage I am interested in is our pretty Amanda’s here,” Elisabeth explained.

“How very droll,” Michael chuckled as he took up the switch.

The first line of fire across Amanda’s exposed bottom extracted a shriek and she began panting hard again. The first of many, she realised; it was going to be a long evening.

Ends.