Phoebe had drifted through life since college. Feckless her mother had called it, but the petite redhead thought that Mum could just as easily be talking about herself for all the direction she had ever provided. Still the informal apprenticeship with a City firm of interior decorators didn’t exactly feel permanent and Phoebe fully expected to be moving on by Christmas.

Originally Phoebe had only come to Dangerfield to assist Mrs Mulberry with the interior decorating project; a six week secondment and then back to London. But Dangerfield’s master, known only as Dhenry, hadn’t liked Mulberry at all and insisted in deferring to Phoebe on every little decision until the woman had given up and returned to the city. Well deferring was perhaps putting it too strongly; Dhenry seemed to defer to no one, but when it came to interior design he said it was women’s work and ‘not his area.’

Phoebe thought he was a sexist pillock and she hated him. The only trouble was she didn’t.

Dhenry was for the most part amusing and good humoured, a large man in his late 30s with the build of a former boxer. He certainly had the hands for it, two great pizza paddles set on thick wrist that tapered up to his powerful upper arms. His jaw was square and prominent, too much so for good looks but he had firm blue eyes that seemed look right through her.

Dangerfield was a strange place, a red brick late Georgian affair set under the wild wooded hills of the Tamar valley. Not remote exactly, but set apart at the end of an unadopted road outside the village.

Stranger still were its residents. Phoebe thought Dhenry strange enough, but he shared the house with two young women who were neither servants nor lovers as far as Phoebe could make out.

There was Margery, a ditsy blonde in her late twenties who styled herself an artist. She seemed to be a lodger of some kind who paid her way by taking informal responsibility for the garden.

Petra was even odder to Phoebe’s mind. She was a little younger with a dark aspect, her hair, complexion and sharp sullen eyes all dark. Unlike Margery, she was surly and unfriendly at every turn, and apart from some vague duties around the house, she did nothing but read.

But strangest of all were the spankings.

Phoebe had come in from sketching in the garden shortly after Mulberry had left to find a trail of broken pots and soapy puddles in the hall leading from the kitchen. The trail had led to a very sorry looking Petra standing at the rear of the passage with her jeans and knickers at her ankles and her hands planted firmly on her head. Her small pert dusky bare bottom had so obviously been spanked.

“Oh my God,” Phoebe had gasped. “Why are you…? I mean what happened?”

“Fuck off,” Petra had said in her usual sullen tones, although with rather less conviction than usual.

Petra had confronted Margery about it only to be told that it was how “Dhenry handled things around here.”

Sure enough Petra was spanked almost every week, Phoebe even witnessed two such events and Dhenry did not stint with his arm. The girl had howled and sobbed in earnest for the entire 20-30 minute duration over his knee.

Margery too had been spanked at least twice, events that she had accepted both meekly and calmly; although with as much gusto as Petra when it came to it.

Now two months had passed and although Phoebe had sketched out ideas for every room in the house, not one lick of paint had been applied.

“This is completely ridiculous,” Phoebe complained to Margery one day, “I was supposed to be just the intern and should have been out of here two weeks ago. When are we going to start?”

Margery shrugged.

“I came here three years ago to paint Dhenry’s portrait,” she said dismissively, “It is still half finished up in the attic.”

“So why don’t you leave?” Phoebe asked incredulously.

“I like it here,” Margery shrugged, “Why don’t you?”

A call to London had confirmed that she was still getting paid and that Phoebe wasn’t expected back any time soon. But Margery’s question played on her mind.

“This is turning into the bloody Hotel California,” she muttered as soon as she put the phone down.

That afternoon she grabbed a brush and a pot of Dulux powder blue and started on the walls in the conservatory. Just a specimen section, but it made her feel better.

“Did Dhenry say you could paint that wall?” Petra asked in a sharp voice as she came up behind Phoebe mid-stroke.

“I… eh… I am only trying it,” she said defensively, “He more or less said that he liked the colour.”

“Well which was it, more or less?” Petra grunted.

He had said he would think about it, Phoebe remembered. She shrugged.

“Oh well, it is your arse,” Petra said in a bored comeback.

Phoebe thought about all the spanking she had witnessed and giggled. She wondered if the irony had been lost on Petra. But at the back of her mind she remembered Dhenry’s off-hand paternal manner and the fact that she and Petra were around the same age and her mouth became a little dry even as her tummy tingled. But with a shrug she turned back to her painting.

The conservatory had an iron curved roof that had been an Edwardian extension to the old Georgian house. Looking at even the little painting she had done she could see a vast improvement, although now that the walls had turned half blue the white painted iron framed windows looked a little shabby.

Dhenry had mentioned something about black and she groaned. Perhaps a period floral wallpaper would work better, she thought.

“What do you think you are doing?” a sharp male voice snapped.

Phoebe whirled around to confront Dhenry who stood framed by the French windows with is arms folded.

“I… I thought…” Phoebe suddenly felt a little foolish.

“Did I sign off on you starting the decorations? Did I sign off on blue?” he pressed her with a scowl.

“No but…” Phoebe offered him an awkward smile and blushed. He was right of course but… it had seemed such a good idea to make a start. As she stood with dripping brush in had she suddenly she felt like a kid caught with a hand in the biscuit barrel.

“No,” Dhenry agreed with a sigh.

“Shall I…?” Phoebe gestured to the wall with the brush wondering if she should finish.

“What you are going to do is come with me,” he said wearily. “I mean I like you Phoebe, really I do, but it is long past the time you got a good sound spanking.”

“I… I got a what…? I mean… come on,” she blustered. This was crazy.

“What do you expect? Did you think you were immune? You know… you knew what would happen didn’t you?” Dhenry said in a tone that left absolutely no room for an argument.

Phoebe tried anyway. “I didn’t… you can’t… I’m just…”

“Phoebe,” he barked, “Come with me now.”

Without waiting Dhenry strode off to the sun lounge or morning room as it was called, a large furnished room just inside the conservatory that backed onto the garden.

Phoebe put down the brush and smoothed down her denim coveralls to remove traces of paint and sighed. She would just have to explain, she thought, but still somewhat disconcerted and nervous she hurried after Dhenry in case she angered him further.

By the time Phoebe got to the lounge Dhenry was sitting on an armless Victorian chair with a stern expression on his face. She had seen the posture before, he had often spanked Petra in that chair and she shot an involuntary glance at the corner where she had seen the surly brat standing with her hands on head more than once.

“That’s right,” Dhenry said, “I am glad we understand one another, but first comes the spanking.”

“Look,” Phoebe began, “You can’t just…”

Dhenry put up a dismissive arm to silence her.

“You artistic types are all the same, all ideas and no discipline,” Dhenry groaned. “Petra was just the same when she came here. Now stop giving me attitude and drop your things.”

“My… things,” Phoebe wailed, “I am not going to let you…”

“There is no letting about this,” Dhenry said incredulously. “You are going to get a good sound spanking on your bare bottom and then you are going to stand in that corner for at least an hour. Make your mind up to it, it is going to happen and you damn well know it young lady.”

Phoebe rolled her eyes in exasperation as if confronting a fool. “I am not one of your…” she began but stopped, one of his what, one of the women that lived here and pretending to have artistic pretensions? In a flash of insight she knew that the design company in London had long since given up on her and that it was Dhenry who paid her wages.

“Look can’t we talk about this, I mean I like it here and… and… maybe we can…” she began suddenly feeling even more foolish.

“We will talk about this alright, it is time you pulled your weight but first you have a spanking coming young lady now drop your overalls and get over my knee,” Dhenry ordered her.

Phoebe gulped. She knew that she could refuse. She knew that if she fled to her room nothing more would be said. She wouldn’t even lose her job, such that it was. But she knew too that she wouldn’t belong. So before she knew what she was doing she unhooked the shoulder strap on her dungaree type coverall and let the denim fall to her waist as she stumbled forward.

She was lowered firmly across Dhenry’s lap, the hardness of his thighs like a rock bench beneath hers. Then the back of her denim slid down her thighs allowing her legs to chill. A sensation soon joined at her bared bottom as her knickers joined the journey south to her ankles.

Phoebe gasped, her eyes swivelling wildly as she squirmed on his lap. She felt his rough hands brush her bare bum, a grizzled leather paddle on cool silk.

“It was just… just a test,” she said lamely, still thinking of her abortive painting attempt. “You’re right, the colour is…” she swallowed, “well its wrong isn’t it? What about green or… or…”

The first spank arrived at the tight curve of her bottom with a flaming crack. It hurt like nothing she had ever felt and her eyes boggled in her head. Margery had said he had a paddle and a strap as well as a cane.

“For when a girl is really for it,” she had said.

But for Phoebe she could think of nothing worse than Dhenry’s hand and the second spank made her yelp.

“I will tell you when to paint,” Dhenry spanked. “And what to paint,” he said, spanking her again. “And you will do exactly what you are told.”

“Yes Sir.” Phoebe’s voice was shrill and she was already panting as if running a race.

The spanked area of her bottom thrilled and burned and stung and… and how long had he spanked Petra?

“Please Sir,” she wailed. “I’ll be good, I’ll be ever so good.”

“I know,” Dhenry said warmly, “I know.”

And then they both settled down for a long, long quarter of an hour of spanking.