Our story started here.

Quail woke with a start and at once knew where she was. The light was clean and white and beyond the windows the mountains soared into the stratosphere like islands in a sea of clouds. In her first year of college she and some friends had taken a vacation to the Cloudhaven on home-world; a place where the sky skimming was the best in the quadrant and she had first learned to fly.

Then she remembered Jane and the spanking and her hands flew to her bottom. It was cool, smooth and white. A fact verified by a long hard look in the bathroom mirror.

“Can I have the exit codes now?” she called out, but she was more relieved than surprised when there was no answer. “So what happens now?” she muttered as she rifled the wardrobe for her jump suit and other flying gear where she remembered it.

Quail had last visited Cloudhaven when she was 19. That was the year before she had left home-world and her life had taken another turn. It was here that she had learned to fly during her first season at community college.

Cloudhaven itself was a construct that stood high above the clouds on the highest peaks of the Heaven Mountains. Form here you could hire a flyer and dive into the currents and dip and soar above the clouds.

Quail had forgotten of how on her first visit she had sullenly decided it was no more than a glorified ski resort for flyers. She laughed at the memory. Only the very young could be that cynical.

“Okay then, why this place?” she murmured as she stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the concourse.

The flyers were lined up as she remembered; nose to the open edge just meters from an impossibly high fall. Looking now she felt the familiar but long forgotten butterflies in her tummy. How had she ever found the courage for that first dive?

“Hey you,” and male voice barked.

Quail turned and saw the broad-shouldered man-mountain of distant memory. His jaw was impossibly square and as he frowned in her direction she felt the same tingle of her long lost youth. His cleft chin matched the two neat frown lines between his eyes. Her first flying instructor… or was he later? She strained to remember his name.

“Letitia Quail,” the man snapped up at her from the concourse, “I warned you yesterday, why are you always late?”

Jake Van Jain, the name came to her. And then she remembered something else and blushed.

*

The flyer had been just as she remembered. It was a sleek triangle of silver and blue, equipped with what had been then, the latest kinetic-inertia compression engines. Doubtlessly in this… whatever it was… replay of her life she had already had some lessons. This was evident because after only the stern caution to stay out of the red and black zones she was given the activation codes and let loose.

The flyer slid from the housing and up to the edge as easily as she remembered. She had piloted many craft since this time in her life but nothing prepared her for the sudden stomach lurch-making drop as the nose tipped ground-ward for three heart skipping beats before it soared in true flight.

Quail grinned vigorously all the way through the dive and then wider still as flyer made the turn. If this was a dream then just then she wished she wouldn’t wake-up, this is… better than she remembered it.

The day spent flying had passed in such a way that Quail, when she remembered that was, was certain that the experience was real. Whatever had happened to her since she encountered the sphere on some very real level was real.

As she had dived vertically down the face of the mountain and then back up in one great curve to the stratosphere so that the fluffy ‘snow’ of the cloud floor was far below her she realised how much she missed flying for pleasure. For long moments she even forgot her future-past in crime.

*

Finally the flyer dropped onto the concourse of Cloudhaven and she glided to an elegant stop. Most of the other flyers were back now, so it took her a moment to find a tight spot to park up for the night.

It took her another moment to find her legs and as she staggered back on to firm ground she had to steady herself against the craft.

Then she saw Jake Van Jain was standing there with his arms folded and glaring at her.

“Something wrong,” she asked him quizzically, cocking one eyebrow.

As she remembered it he had been a moody soing-so and a stickler for the rules. At 19 she had been terrified of him, now she wondered if she might entice him for a drink.

“You passed out for solo flight two days ago,” he said sharply.

Two days or 18 years depending on what time frame you wanted to apply, but she sensed that this Jake wouldn’t know that, so she shrugged.

“Don’t give me that attitude young lady,” Jake barked, “I told you to stay out of the red and black zones. I told you clearly.”

Quail thought of the cliff face that had soared past her wing and nearly snatched the flyer away from her. It had been a tough one even after all these years and her heart still raced at the recent memory.

“You know what I said I’d do if you disobeyed me,” Jake snarled.

Quail did actually and when she had been 19 she had thrilled at the terror of it. But even then she had not believed the threat. Then she remembered Jane and the house.

“I see that you do,” Jake’s voice was heavy with a promise.

Quail’s heart caught in her throat and her eyes widened. She was still considering what he had said all those years before but never acted upon when he took her arm and half-led her and half-dragged her back towards the flight-station.

Again despite her best efforts all her martial skill had left her and she was no more able to resist the man than she had been at 19.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she wailed.

But Jake ignored her until he reached a viewing bench on the path between the office and the club-bar. There he sat down and much the amusement of several of the gathered flyers he hauled her across his lap and patted her proffered behind.

“You know exactly what I am doing you brat,” Jake growled.

But this hadn’t happened, not in real life. Jake had only threatened to spank her. The blood surge to her cheeks and she felt light-headed. But back then she had been too scared to use the red and black zones. She had often wondered…

Jake’s hand blasted down on the seat of her flight suit and stung like a son-of-a-bitch. To make matters worse the assembled group of young flyers now turned their attention to her spanking and began to laugh.

“You can’t do this,” Quail blustered, but Jake ignored her and set about spanking her with his great paddle-like hand.

As Quail’s dignity fled from her she couldn’t help but kick her heels at each impact.

“Not like this, please not like this, I’m sorry, okay,” she spat angrily, sounding anything but sorry.

Jake continued to ignore and brought his thick powerful arm down in wide sweeps with a satisfying crack across Quail’s drum-tight upturned bottom.

“You bastard, you can’t do this to me,” Quail wailed.

She was undecided if the sting in her tail was worse than the assault on her dignity; at that moment it was a close run thing.

“You could have been killed you little monster and I would have lost my job,” Jake yelled at her.

“Good,” Quail spat, but oddly she found she didn’t mean it.

This was the man who had taught her to fly and had given one of the greatest gifts of her life; a gift that she had later perverted in a life of crime.

“Good is it? I can’t spank you like this, is it?” he muttered, “Well what about like this?”

With that he tugged at the rear panel of her flight suit and pulled down the flap exposing Quail’s bare bottom.

“You bastard,” Quail gasped, but Jake ignored her and set about the spanking again with renewed gusto.

The gathered young people roared with laughter as Quail’s bright red cheeks popped into view, a colour that was more than rivalled by the angry puce of her cheeks.

This time the sting of the spanking was unsupportable and despite her best efforts Quail began to blub like a kid, much as she might have done had she been really 19.

“I’m sorry, please I’m sorry,” she bawled and this time she found that she was.

The spanking lasted a good five minutes longer before Jake set the sobbing Quail on her feet.

“Pull another stunt like that and you are not only barred from Cloudhaven, but I’ll spank you so hard you’ll stand up all the way home and for a week afterwards,” and angry Jake told her.

A miserable Quail clutched impotently at the seat of her flight suit and then fled for her quarters with the sound of laughter ringing in her ears.

*

Quail lay face down on her bed cried for an hour before the tears let-up. At 19 she would probably have hidden in her room for the rest of the holiday and wanted to die. But now she felt clean as if she had atoned for something.

Getting up she backed up to the mirror and inspected the damage. Her bottom was a dark red with purplish mottles all over it. No one had ever stood up to her like that before and she felt a warm tickle inside.

Tomorrow she might just seek this man out, she mused with a smile.

to be continued