Maxwell Abaconti eyed the monitor with an old-fashioned sinking feeling. Even in black and white Emma Wakefield was a striking woman. Her boyish hair did nothing to detract from her feminine charms and she had the larger-than-life kind of looks that worked well on TV.  Even her eyes, a little too large for her head, gave her a wide-eyed doll-like aspect. It was a look she cultivated with expensive and well-applied make-up. Her supermodel curves too only added to her allure and made her one of the hottest properties in television. Until now she had been one of his best personality acquisitions.

Unfortunately these days she was getting a little too hot and garnering all the wrong kind of attention. What to do? Abaconti mused as he pressed the intercom.

“I am ready to see Ms Wakefield now,” he told his secretary

Emma slinked in with a Cheshire cat grin and the over-confident feline moves to go with it.

“Mr Abaconti,” she purred, “How very nice.”

“Come in Ms Wakefield,” Abaconti said, rising from his chair just enough for politeness sake. His firm open hand indicated the second best chair in front of his desk.

Emma smiled more widely and took the better seat, her tongue so gently moistening her full lips.

“I trust the police have finished with you?” he said curtly, but only his eyes showed any displeasure at her open defiance.

“The police?” she replied in an affected puzzled voice, “Oh that was… nothing, some silly…”

“You were photographed with cocaine backstage at the awards,” Abaconti said sharply.

“So what,” Emma affected a look of disgust and waved the comment away. “The police seem satisfied.”

“The police have been very difficult for me to manage, I won’t be able to do that again,” Abaconti said in an even tone.

Emma sucked in her cheeks to supress her surprise.

“That’s right Ms Wakefield, I handled it,” he sighed, “What did you think, that you are fireproof? And as for ‘so what,’ I am a businessman, Ms Wakefield; I cannot afford my television and theatrical interests to taint my other businesses.”

“Look…” Emma began, for the first time looking unsure of herself.

“No,” he growled, “You look. I had hoped to make you see sense and that what they said about you wasn’t true, but I am afraid we must part company.”

Emma gaped and sat up at last. For a second she looked like the vulnerable wannabe kid he had hired a decade before. “But I am under contract.”

“I’ll honour the money, but you won’t work for me or anyone until all this blows over. What you do after the contract expires is up to you,” Abaconti told her and made to hit the intercom signal the end of the interview.

“What are they saying about me?” Emma wailed, she was hugging herself defensively.

Abaconti frowned and wondered if she was kidding. “That you are the Snow Queen or more unkindly, Charlie’s Aunt, I mean at your age, what are you now? Thirty six? You should know better. You have an addictive personality Ms Wakefield, and if wasn’t cocaine, it would be something else.”

“But if you cancel my show…” Emma whined.

“I am not cancelling anything. Darcy Drake…” he began.

“Darcy Drake!?” Emma raged, “That, that…”

“Professional, is the word you are looking for,” Abaconti sighed again.

Tears pooled in Emma’s eyes and she clenched her fists. Then like the professional corpse she was, she walked woodenly towards the door. A door, that when she came to it, she it found impossible to open.

With the last of her confidence she whirled around to confront Abaconti.

“Darcy Drake got into a similar fix as I did, about five years ago,” Emma said eagerly, “I mean she was a mess. How did you turn her around?”

Abaconti sat back and gave her a hard look. “That, Ms Wakefield, is between Ms Drake and I.”

“Look, I’ll do anything, I do mean anything,” Emma said huskily as she licked her lips and the sexy feline returned as she sauntered back across the room.

Abaconti looked to the heavens. “You have nothing that is worth the risk. In another month you will just make the headlines again…” he shrugged.

“I’ll clean up my act, I swear it,” she begged.

“Why do you remind me so much of my daughter?” he laughed, but it was a sad humour and his eyes stayed hard.

“Please Mr Abaconti, please…” she was breathless now and to his surprise she dropped to her knees.

Abaconti sucked in a quick breath and let it go slowly.

“Ms Wakefield, for professional differences you are going to be dropped,” he said with a tone of finality, “But…” he appeared to consider something. “I have another slot early next year…”

“Yes?” Emma said eagerly.

“If you can prove to me by then that you have changed your ways…” he said carefully.

“Anything, Mr Abaconti, anything…” she gushed.

*

“This is really quite perverted,” Emma said nervously.

“Don’t do it then,” Abaconti shrugged, “Not if you feel like that, but I am rather insulted by your assessment.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” Emma said quickly. Even for a TV show host she was unused to such exposure and she blushed as well she might.

She was now standing in the middle of Abaconti’s office dressed only in her chemise and stocking tops. A triangle of dark unfashionably thick pubic hair was scarce hid by her fluttering hands and she couldn’t help but glance anxiously at the rest of her clothes on the chair by the door lest they sudden go astray.

Abaconti had selected one of his thinnest canes and was fingering it lovingly.

“For openers I am going to turn you over my knee and give you a damn good spanking. Then, if you obey all my orders to the letter and my spies report that you have forsaken the nasty white stuff then it will be a mere 18 a month with this until the situation is, one-way or another, resolved.”

Emma licked her lips and nodded silently.

“Tell me what will happen if you backslide?” Abaconti asked innocently.

Breathily and trembling a little Emma said “Then you’ll…” she gulped, “Spank me and… eh… cane me every week until you are convinced I am really sorry,” she quoted him.

“Fair enough isn’t it?” he said.

Emma nodded vigorously, “Yes Sir.”

Emma licked her lips in a vain attempt to wipe away her nerves. It was strange unsettling to be half-naked in front of a man she had only met two dozen times in an entirely business context. Despite the warmth of the room she felt a chill where her thighs above her stocking tops were exposed to the air; focussing keenly on her legs at this point distracted her from the utter nudity of her exposed bottom.

Abaconti was sitting in a backless chair facing the room. With one hand he beckoned her while in the other he held a long stout hairbrush.

“Okay then,” Emma said pointedly as she crossed the room.

Out of bravado she made no attempt to cover the dark pubic triangle exposed to his gaze, although Abaconti affected not to notice.

Going across a man’s knee was not an entirely new experience for Emma, but it was the first time she had surrendered in earnest for what amounted to punitive purposes. Who was she kidding? This was going to be an old fashioned bare bottom spanking in the fullest sense, she realised and blushed as she squirmed.

“Keep still,” Abaconti cautioned.

“Yes Sir,” Emma replied in a thick voice.

She fixed a sullen eye on a spot by the skirting board and worked her mouth in a parody of swallowing. That will be my pride, she thought miserably. Utterly exposed, she reached down to steady herself against the chair leg so that her respectably fulsome bottom was up-rounded and embarrassingly uppermost.

The hairbrush worried her. It was long and heavy looking, much as if its purpose was taming women rather than taming hair. The sudden sharp thwack on her tender parts confirmed that suspicion.

“Ahhh,” Emma yelled in angry surprise, “That hurt.”

The second spank hurt even more and her response was just as vocal.

“You’re kidding right,” she gasped, “I mean… that’s enaaaarf,”her shrieked was followed by a string of choice words.

Abaconti’s spanking arm fell firmly and moderately fast, with an efficiency that another man might save for wood chopping. The steady thwack crack of the impact reinforced the image, although the intermittent expletives and womanish squeals were out of place.

“Ms Wakefield,” he said in a stern reasonable voice, “Make up your mind to it. You are getting a long sound spanking on your bare bottom. It will hurt and it will do you good, but in any event it will only stop when I am satisfied you have learned your lesson.

“Oh God, oh God,” Emma gasped, “I know but… erhh ahhh yeeeee,” she added in a monumental loss of composure.

Her bottom was still smooth and tight, but now the snowy complexion had turned strawberry red, rather like her face, although the latter was now somewhat shiny with tears.

“I… understand… I… get… it…” she panted, “P-please, pleee…” her words suddenly interrupted as a gasp for air turned into a honk-like sob.

“I am not sure that you do,” Abaconti said solicitously, “But I have a feeling you will.”

In the event the spanking lasted for another 15 minutes before he set a thoroughly broken and sobbing TV personality onto her feet.

Emma had long since given up trying to preserve any dignity and now stood panting and grabbing at her tail as she regarded her tormentor from under a veil of falling tears.

“Are you going to be a good girl now?” he asked her with not the slightest hint of patronage. “Or do you need some more spanking?”

Emma shook her head vigorously and rather childishly moved to guard her sore bottom with her hands. “I’ll be good,” she said, now somewhat shy.

“I want you to prove that by going to the corner and putting your hands on your head, you know, like in kindergarten, facing the wall,” Abaconti said casually.

Emma gaped but all resistance had long since fled, especially as Abaconti still held the brush. So with a sniff she nodded and taking ginger steps made her way across the room to where he had directed.

“In an hour or two I will summon my secretary to make you another appointment, until then you stay there and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you,” he told her.

“No Sir,” she sniffed. She hoped to good God that she was to be allowed to get dressed again before that happened.

*

It had been two weeks since she had been spanked by Abaconti and now she was here to pay the piper in earnest. Not that the spanking had been an easy one. It had been three days before she had been able to sit down and 10 before most of the marks had gone. Even two weeks later she fancied she could still feel a hint of tenderness when she pressed her bottom with her fingers.

In all that time she had cursed the man and dug deep for a sense of resentment, but as yet she had found none. Just another adventure, she told herself, and one that saves my career.

Emma was certainly in no mood for another meeting with Mr Abaconti. Ever since she had arrived she had been racking her brains for any slip that might have come to light.  At least the apprehension had been a distraction from her embarrassment as she had got undressed.

But nothing had could have distracted her from the utter helpless feeling if having to bend over the back of the Chesterfield with her bare bottom sticking out.

“Heels together,” Abaconti said officiously, putting Emma in mind of a dance teacher she once had. She rolled her eyes and obeyed the instruction; an action that served to present her bottom all the more keenly.

“This is so undignified,” she said lightly as she bent over the back of the chair.

“Not as undignified as prison, Ms Wakefield, not as undignified as ending a promising television career doing panto at the end of a pier show somewhere. I trust you have been a good girl?” he said, his tone was somewhat amused.

“I haven’t touched anything I shouldn’t,” she lied.

He knew it was a lie, but he also knew that she had only slipped twice; once the day she had been spanked and the last night. A sin to be sure, but it could have been worse.

“I don’t expect miracles, and I am going to cane come what may,” Abaconti told her as he lined up the long thin stick. “But next time you lie to me we will most certainly add to your punishment.”

Emma gulped and thought about protesting. How did he know? She might have pondered longer upon his omniscience, but the sharp stroke of the cane stole all thoughts from her head.

“Jeeeerszshhh,” she gasped somewhat opaquely.

Abaconti wondered idly what she had meant to say. He had heard many different expletives over the years. The most amusing were by those not trying to swear.

Emma pumped her heels so that her bottom rolled as she tried to shake out the single line of pain. A line that was visible now as a thin plum band crossing the centre of both cheeks.

The second stroke was rather loud and drew another gasping squeal. Emma danced for this one too, her bottom doing a shimmy as she hissed under moist wide eyes. The pain was cloying and persistent as it continued to throb along both lines scoring her bottom. The third seemed even worse.

She broke into slow heavy panting as she slapped at the back of the leather chair and tried to contain her wriggling.

“Each stroke builds on the last doesn’t it? The effect is to redouble the distress,” Abaconti explained unnecessarily.

“Yes Sir,” Emma gasped.

Three more strokes took the sawing slices right down to where bottom fold met thigh, by which time she was crying freely.

Such was Abaconti’s skill that he placed six more strokes between each of the first set so that where the colour ‘bled’ into the surrounding skin Emma had a continues band of red across both bottom cheeks.

It was onto this crimson canvas that he put the final six, each stroke extracting an angry pain howl from his unfortunate celebrity.

“Your first caning Ms Wakefield,” Abaconti said warmly, “You may rise,” his gestured complimented the command. “Unless you have been completely well behaved, next week you will receive 24 strokes…”

“But you said…” Emma sobbed as she bounced on heels with her hands clamped to her bum.

“I said you would get 18 a month if you were well behaved,” he cut her off. “You have not, have you?”

“No Sir,” she admitted sheepishly.

“So each week you may expect 24, 30, 36… you get the idea,” he shrugged. “So the sooner you have a clean conscience the sooner it will only necessary to pay you out with 18 a month.”

“Yes Sir,” Emma said ruefully and wiped her eyes.

“Where are you going?” Abaconti asked as she started across the room.

“The… corner… I thought…?” she stuttered.

“So you are learning after all Ms Wakefield,” Abaconti chuckled.

*

There was no escaping 24 or 30. She went two weeks before getting another 30, but sadly 36, 42 and then 48 followed with a depressing inevitability.

“Please, please Sir, I can’t, I just can’t handle that again,” she had wept after that particular encounter.

“Then you know what to do, don’t you?” Abaconti had shrugged.

Emma had thought the phrase ‘won’t sit down for a week’ just a figure of speech. But it was her figure that couldn’t make contact with so much as an armchair for the eight days that followed. It had been a fortnight before she hadn’t had to sleep on her tummy.

Her abstinence had held up for another week, but a night overindulging alcohol at a night club saw her back to see Abaconti.

“As you are trying I’ll be lenient, but it is 36 again this time I am afraid,” Abaconti told her as she bent over again.

“I know,” she sighed, “But I am learning, really I am.”

*

A month later she was able to make the appointment with a clear conscience. She still had to face 18 cane strokes across her bottom, but she could almost take that in her stride; almost.

“If I don’t see you for another month then…” Abaconti said thoughtfully.

“Yes,” Emma jumped up eagerly. Her bottom was bare for the caning and he frowned at her breach of protocol. “Oh, sorry,” she made a wince-face as she bent back over.

“As I was saying, if you can stay clean for another month then we will talk about that new project of ours,” Abaconti told her.

“Yes Sir,” despite her shameful exposure Emma grinned.

The first stroke bit in hard and wiped the smile from her face.

*

“Reeeality Teeeeveeee like you have never seen it before,” the unseen announcer gushed with faux enthusiasm, “Ladies and gentleman, Emma Wakefield.”

The audience clapped and screamed like Americans who had just won the lottery or who had been told it was the second coming. It was all very un-British, Abaconti thought from his chair in the control room. While on stage below Emma bounced onto stage with a warm genuine smile that might have even been hers.

“Good evening everyone it’s good to be back and have we got a show for you,” as she ended the line with emphasis and a point to the camera. No doubt the producers were trying out a new catchphrase.

Oh well, all’s well and all that, Abaconti thought. He had seen enough, time would tell if he had a hit.

*

Abaconti was surprised to see Emma in his office again. He was sure that they must have seen enough of each other by now. His role in TV was hands-off to say the least now that he had another hit on his hands. He didn’t usually meet the talent unless there was a problem.

“Ms Wakefield, how nice, what can I do for you?” he smiled indulgently.

“Please, call me Emma,” Emma said with a smile that left her full lips and flowed like honey from her eyes.

“You are looking happier, I must say, I trust your contract is in order and there are no problems with the show?” Abaconti said indicating that she should sit.

Emma smiled confidently but chose the second best chair. A look was exchanged and he smiled too. She just shrugged, somewhat shyly he thought.

“No everything is fine,” Emma said. “It is just that… well…” she coughed.

Abaconti cocked his head paternally and nodded rapidly while he waited for her to cut to the chase. He resisted the urge to check his watch.

“Our little meetings…” she blushed, “I sort of… that is… I rather miss them.” She averted her eyes.

“I can understand that,” Abaconti shrugged.

“I knew you would,” Emma said suddenly eager. “I mean I am rather afraid that I will fall back on old ways. I mean… well while you were… I was… I had no need of…”

“You think I have time to personally mentor you?” Abaconti frowned.

Emma’s face dropped. “I guess not… I know you’re busy and I suppose compared to you I am not the big shot I thought I was. Thank you for teaching me that. It goes to one’s head sometimes.”

She opened her mouth to say more but instead she stood up and gestured to the door. “Well that’s all really, I just wanted to thank you.”

Abaconti sighed. “Emma,” he said wearily. “Get yourself ready and go and stand in your corner. What your bottom bare mind. I a few calls to make, but I am sure I can find the time to give you a couple of dozen where it will do the most good.”

Emma’s eyes went wide for a moment as if she hadn’t counted on so many. “Couldn’t you just spank me?” she squeaked.

“Emma, go and stand in the corner,” Abaconti barked.

“Yes Sir,” she said hurriedly and moved to obey.

Once an addict always and addict, Abaconti allowed the thought, oh well, no rest for the wicked.