Simone sighed as she looked herself over in the mirror. The woman staring back at her was of average height with non-descript dark mousey-blonde hair pulled up to a ragged knot by a broad grey head band. It was like one she had seen on a dancer in a movie.

Her eyes were dark bluish-grey she supposed, but were mottled with brown bits that in strong light made them appear dirty green. Her thighs were firm, but they seemed too short and thick, although she had been twice told at auditions that it was her calves that were too thin.

She hefted her small breasts and then turned to examine the prominence of her behind. Her bottom was round enough, but it wasn’t exactly pert and seemed to stick out too much when she stood side-on to the mirror.

Simone tried to see herself as others had seen her but the girl in the glass did not seem to quite match what she had been told. She had been variously described as too short in the leg, too tall, too stout, too thin or one hurtful occasion ‘lacking in spirit.’

She had wanted to be a dancer all her life. She lived, ate, slept and dreamt the poetry of motion. The true colour of her bedroom walls had long since been forgotten under a screen of overlapping posters showing people as diverse as Nureyev, Fontaine, Jennifer Beals, Patrick Swayze and even John Travolta. Her weekends were filled with trips to see any show she could get tickets for. Also as long as she was paying, then dance instructors were willing enough to take her money for lessons, but otherwise Simone could not even get a place in chorus of an amateur dance production.

Now fast approaching 30 her opportunities were dwindling and she felt destined to be a thwarted office worker for the rest of her life.

“Perhaps I should just get a cat,” Simone sighed to the mirror.

Then her eyes fell on the torn piece of paper stuck to the glass. There was an address and telephone number scrawled on it in pink ink. But it had been raining when she had copied it down from the shop window and now it was blurred and all but impossible to read.

The words on the advertisement, however, were etched in her mind.

“Leave your comfort zone behind. Uncompromising dance instructor seeks partner for modern dance show; experience and talent desirable, but total commitment essential.”

Simone knew the type; he would be all brash and barrel-chested with thighs like tree trunks and as gay as a Parisian in spring. But what attracted her were the last three words.

*

The audition had not gone well.

At first sight the man was just as she imagined; Patrick Swayze at 30 but without the mullet. He had the physique alright, but his heavy jaw and eyebrows were at odds with the light green leg-warmers. But instead of being at all camp, he spoke with an educated baritone voice that suggested military officer rather than the Bolshoi.

There had been a dozen of them to begin with but Edward dismissed three of the women before they had even got out of the warm-up stage. Then they had all been put through various spins and jump moves while Edward had stood frowning and shaking his head.

“Oh God,” he had sighed, pinching his nose between a finger and thumb. Then in a determined voice he bellowed, “Never mind the fancy technique, you clearly don’t have any. Just let me see some energy.”

Simone had got down to the last three before he told her to go.

She wasn’t surprised, she had been terrible. She was only amazed that he had taken so long to see that. Some of the younger girls had been well-polished by comparison. Simone could cry. There had been something about him that had given her hope.

With nowhere else to go just then Simone dropped into a chair outside the rehearsal room and practised being miserable. She might as well see which of the girls he decided on. It didn’t take long.

Five minutes later the remaining two girls left with failure drawn on their faces.

“The man is impossible,” one of the said in an accent perhaps better suited to a South London hairdresser apprentice.

“Oh yah,” said the other in more Ascot tones.

Simone should have felt better about her own failure, but she didn’t. Maybe she could audition again, she thought. If he wasn’t satisfied then maybe if she…

On an impulse she jumped up and went back into the studio.

“Edward… can I ask… I mean…” she offered meekly.

The instructor didn’t look up from some papers on top of the piano. Not that the instrument had served any other purpose, the music having been supplied by tape.

Simone swallowed.

“Mr Bond… what exactly…?”

“No one calls me Bond, Mr Bond or anything other than Edward or Sir when I am teaching,” Edward said not looking up from the paperwork.

“Oh,” Simone said, pulling a face, “I was only… I mean.”

“You’re the girl who over practices aren’t you?” he sighed glancing over at her, “I like that, it shows commitment. But you have no follow-through.”

Simone thought of the man who had told she had no spirit and sagged into herself.

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

“You start a move you clearly know, but halfway through you lose commitment to it. Like you doubt yourself,” Edward shrugged. “Your technique is terrible, but… well I could work with that. But you look much too much the delicate flower.”

“I’m not…” Simone said tentatively. “I mean I know… but… well…”

Edward took in a breath and held it as if considering.

“I seem to have run out of candidates,” he said. “Be here at six tomorrow. Don’t be late. If you take everything I throw at you and still come back… then perhaps we will see.”

“Oh yes Mr Bond… Edward… I mean…” Simone gushed, backing away in genuflection.

“Edward is for auditions, from now on you will call me Sir,” Edward growled.

“Sir… oh yes Sir,” Simone grinned.

*

Six o’clock was a tall order and after Simone got off the bus she knew she would be late. She ran three streets to reach the studios and got there barely four minutes late.

“I’m so sorry,” Simone panted, “I…”

“You’re late,” Edward said sharply.

He was standing in the front of the rehearsal floor already to leave.

“I know I…”

“Your first day and already to have broken my first rule, I don’t think it is going to work out is it?”

“I am so sorry it’s just that… oh… give me another chance… I… Edward, please…” Simone broke off with a wail.

“And now rule two,” Edward said with a heavy sigh.

“Oh… I mean Sir… sorry, sorry Sir,” Simone spluttered.

“You can remember something at least then,” he said wearily.

Edward studied the woman hard. He noticed the fear and the hunger in her eyes. Then he made up his mind.

“Come here,” he snapped and without waiting for her to react he pulled her to him and led her firmly to an orange plastic stackable chair and sat down. He hauled her easily across his lap, placing her prominent leggings-clad bottom uppermost and set about belabouring her with a heavy hand.

“Omigosh,” Simone gasped.

The spanking lasted no more than three or four minutes but Simone was barely able to cope and within moments was bucking and panting over his lap as if she were doing a full workout.

Finally Edward set her on her feet and studied her while she did an impromptu dance for him with her hands clamped to her bottom. Simone was blushing as red as her behind must have been. She had no idea where to look as her eyes switched from a point on his chest and the open door to the rehearsal room.

“Next time I have to spank you it will be on your bare bottom and I don’t really care who is around,” he scolded her, “Never be late again. Never call me Edward during a session again. Is that clear?”

“Yes Sir,” Simone hissed as she continued to dance.

“Now go and stand right in the corner over there with your nose pressed against the mirror and your hands on your head,” he ordered. “If you are still here when I get back, then we will we begin. Now I am going to get a coffee.”

Simone gaped at him but his eyes told her he wasn’t joking, so shaking herself she scurried to the corner to obey. This was going to be so embarrassing, she thought, but there wasn’t the least thought that she would disobey him.

As she shuffled in the corner and put her hands on her head she felt the heat rising in her face. It was hot enough to rival the insistent sting she still felt her bottom. And as the minutes ticked by she had no idea if he had gone or who else may be watching. There was certainly no danger of getting bored, as every footfall or clunk beyond the open door renewed her blushes.

*

“So you decided to stay,” he said suddenly from behind her.

Simone gave a start and gulped. She had been standing in the corner for what seemed like hours.

“Turn around,” he said gently.

Simone could still feel the impact of his hard hand, but it was the embarrassment that she swallowed down now. Reluctantly she turned, leaving her hands humiliatingly on her head, not having been told to take them down; this even though they had begun to ache.

“Put your arms down,” he said in an amused voice. What time do you have to be at work? I mean I assume you have a job?”

“Yes Sir… I…” for a moment she struggled to remember which of the many recent and crushingly dull temp jobs she still had to go to. Then she remembered that hadn’t been his question and stuttered, “Nine Sir.”

“We will rehearse every day except Sunday between six and eight. But I meant what I said,” he sighed. “If you can stand the pace then… just maybe… anyway now it has gone seven so you had better cut along. We will start afresh tomorrow.”

“Yes Sir, thank you Sir,” Simone gushed.

As she turned to leave he called after her.

“Oh Simone.”

“Yes Sir.”

“If you are even a minute late tomorrow I will spank your bare bottom and leave it bare while we go through our paces,” he warned her.

The colour rushed back to her cheeks and she opened her mouth to reply. But all she could squeak was, “Yes Sir.”

Later that night she had stood with her bottom turned to the mirror, astonished by the hand-shaped bruises gathered on her flesh. They looked like a brand, like she had been claimed and something thrilled inside her. She would do her best for this man, she vowed.

*

The next few sessions went well. Edward was stern but fair. For the most part he gave her exercises and corrected her technique. But after an hour or so of this he would ask her to improvise something to randomly selected music.

The first couple of times he did this, he quickly stopped her and asked her to close her eyes and tell him what she felt and what the music said to her. Then he would tell her to picture it as a motion in her mind.

“Always feel it, always picture it in your head first. Dance is communication. If you do not know what you are trying to say in your mind, then how will it show in your legs and your body?” he explained.

By the end of the week he had done more for her dancing than all the lessons she had ever attended. But still at the forefront of her mind was his claim on her and that spanking.

Then one day he stopped her and said, “Good.”

Simone’s heart jumped in her chest and she felt light-headed.

“Your technique is… we’re working on it, but at least your verve is connected to your feet now,” Edward continued.

“You think this might work out?” she asked hesitantly.

He frowned.

“What do you think we have been doing for the last three weeks?” he snapped.

Despite his cross words she grinned unrestrainedly.

“Alright, don’t let it go to your head. I want to try something else,” he muttered.

The something else turned out to be running leaps. Simone felt as if she was flying, a feeling that lasted all the way to the office afterwards.

*

Hard work and dedication are no guarantees against complacency and one day, after little more than a month, Simone arrived at the studio six minutes late.

“Sorry, the damn shower blocked,” she said in a harassed voice. “Then I missed the bloody bus.”

Simone did not even glance at Edward as she breezed in, but spent another three minutes putting on her shoes and putting her street shoes and top in her bag.

“Where are we up to today?” she asked casually, still not looking up.

“Quite the old pro now aren’t we?” Edward said in a dark voice.

Simone missed the warning and she replied by adding a pout to a shrug.

“Shall we begin?” she asked as she started her warm-up exercises.

Then at last she turned to look at him and caught his eye.

“I did say I was sorry,” she said in a distressed voice.

“You did,” he agreed, “But do you remember what I said?”

She took a hard swallow and flushed puce. How could she forget it? His words still haunted her dreams.

“Edward… Sir I…” Involuntarily she backed away from him and stole a glance at the door.

“You want to quit?” he asked.

It hadn’t even crossed her mind, but she had checked that the door was closed. Not that she quite believed he would carry out his threat.

“No I…” she gulped and continued to blush as her head fizzed with his promises.

Edward nodded, a small grim smile dancing on his lips. He crossed the room and took hold of one of the orange plastic chairs and moved it away from the mirrored wall. Then sitting down he crooked his finger at her.

In the glass behind him, she could see the frightened stranger gangling there. The lack of confidence of that woman no longer reflected her true self. He had already done that for her.

When she didn’t cross the room to him he cocked his head as if to say ‘really?’

She swallowed again and then with nervous steps she tottered over to where he sat.

“What did I say I would do?” his voice carried dark promise.

“You said…” she paused with a wordless sigh, “Are you really…?”

He tilted his head slightly and cupped a hand to his ear.

“You said you would spank me again.” Her words were little more than sighs in the wind. She gulped once more before adding, “Sir.”

It was an excruciating admission and an involuntary toe turned in like a scolded school girl as she dipped her head to look at her dancing pumps.

“Is there any world on which you think this won’t happen?” he asked in a hard voice.

She shook her head.

It took a moment for him to tip her across his knee where held her firmly at the small of her back. Her rather full bottom filled out the loose cotton shorts drawn up over her dance leggings and although he plucked at the material as if picking a flower, he left her clothing in place.

“You know what to do?” he said sharply.

The cheeks on her face held two hot patches. A prophecy perhaps of what was to follow at another extremity of her body.

Simone whispered in a meek voice, “Yes Sir.”

Then delicately reaching around to her hips she took hold of her shorts and tugged them down.

He didn’t speak and she took a breath that lasted three or four eternities.

Then ruefully biting her lower lip she took hold of the top of her leggings and then abandoning her dignity wriggled them over her bottom and down her thighs. Out of the corner of her eye Simone could see the startling image in the mirror of a grown woman stretched out bare bottomed across the lap of powerful looking man with her shorts and leggings bunched at her knees. The sight was incongruous, yet strangely compelling and time seemed to stand on its end. Then with a light chill tickling at her naked behind, he spoke.

“My elder sister was taught to dance in an age when her madam regularly put a can across her bare bottom. As a very young man I saw her once being put through her paces in ballet class naked below her tutu with half a dozen purple lines stark across her snow white bottom. Her face was as red as yours is now but she was exquisite,” he said as his mind compared the memory with the full round bottom now presented to him. “My sister was mortified at the time, but when she later danced in Covent Garden she was grateful for every throbbing score across her behind. As a matter of fact her madam gave her the cane as a memento and I have it still.”

The point wasn’t lost on Simone and she could well imagine Edward’s sister’s embarrassment. And then she remembered something Edward had promised.

“Sir, you are not going to…?”

Her question was cut short by a sharp sting to her bottom as Edward set about administering a sound spanking that made her previous experience seem playful by comparison.

Simone yipped and rocked helplessly across Edward’s lap as he spanked her in earnest with the full benefit of his powerful physique.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she wailed.

“I will not have you coming late,” he roared, “I will not have disrespecting me.”

“I’m sorry Sir,” she bawled, for the burn was very great and unlike before where she had ridden out the spanking in discomfort, now tears pooled at her eyes and her breathing was broken and ragged.

“I will not have you disrespecting yourself,” he barked. “I will make a dancer of you despite your…”

Edward didn’t finish but let his spanking hand convey his displeasure.

“I’m sorry,” Simone screeched.

Contrite tears were in full evidence now.

But it was to no avail. He spanked her for a good 10 minutes before bringing the correction to a conclusion.

“Now go and stand in the corner until I tell you to come out,” he said firmly.

During the spanking her shorts and sailed across the room and her leggings had descended as far as her ankles. This black hobble emphasised her pale white legs which ran down from the two heavy spheres of her fire-cherry bottom. The burning stain there drew her hands like magnets as she got her feet to pogo-jig on the spot. Then as she hopped about clawing at her still bare bottom her mouth was a perfect O on her tear-drenched face as she danced.

“I didn’t say to rub,” he snapped, “Now get to the corner.”

Simone half doubled over as she tugged her dance-vest down to cover her exposed sex. And then balling her fists there as if soothing by proxy she tottered bare bottomed to the corner with her behind seeming to fill the room in her train.

Edward waited until she was firmly ensconced in place with her hands on her head before allowing himself to smile. The last gesture on her part was a nice submissive touch and showed that she was a good learner.

“Stay there until I say so or there is a fire drill,” he ordered her.

Then he strode across the room and out the door to get a coffee.

Simone knew that he had gone and from the clank of the door against the wall and she knew too that he had not closed it and her shame was exposed to any other early birds in the corridor. But his word was her bond and she made no attempt to either move or to rub the sting from her still blazing bottom.

Oddly she felt a little pride that her instructor and dance partner was so strict with her.

*

When Edward returned, Simone had shown no sign of having moved; quite a feat of discipline given the open door to the communal area. Even though there was no one to see, she could not have been certain of that.

“Take your first position,” he told her matter-of-factly.

Simone paused for a moment, acutely aware that he must be staring at her bare bottom and then stepping away from the wall she stooped take hold of the clothing tangled around her ankles. Her extreme bent gesture thrust her bottom back at him, ending any chance he could take her exposure in his stride.

As she grabbed her leggings she stole a glance back at him and waited.

For a long moment their eyes met and he held his peace. He wasn’t going to force the issue, after all he hadn’t been entirely serious about his threat, and exposure had just been something his sister had endured during an all-women class some years back. His chance witnessing of the event was atypical to say the least.

Simone looked away and then taking her courage literally in her hands she firmly gripped the leggings and stepped out of them.

The rest of the class was not as productive as it might have been, dancing as it did between embarrassing, amusing and erotic for both of them. But Simone found the intimacy liberating, even if every move reminded her that she might not be sitting down at the office later.

But as Edward took her under the arms for a lift she felt on top of the world. Then as he hurled her dangerously into the air she was again flying and hoped that she would never land.

*

The spanking that day was not to be her last and in the months that followed Simone became quite intimate with the corner just as Edward became so with her cherry red bottom. Indeed on some days she definitely had to stand up at work, especially after Edward extended their sessions to the evening as well, which only doubled the opportunity for Simone to make mistakes.

She even experienced several agonising sessions with Edward’s cane. But these episodes did nothing to diminish her or quell her spirit. And far from resenting them they made her feel more and more the dancer.

Finally Edward greeted her at the rehearsal room door with a costume.

“You’re ready,” he said smiling. “Go and put this on.”

Simone hugged the outfit to her chest and executed a twirl to come back exactly on her mark to face him with a broad grin.

“Go on,” he grinned back, “Go and get changed.”

As she dashed off to prepare for their first dress rehearsal he watched her go. He had big plans for them both, big plans. But that is another story.

End