Some say she is cursed and others that she defies definition. Few beyond that magical other world have ever even seen her, but those that have can scarce agree on her appearance.

On this day she seems as a girl not much above 20 and sits draped on the window sill in startling attire. Her long red-brown hair hangs in a single plait over her left shoulder so that it rest upon her tricolour tunic in red, white and black; a costume astutely fashioned to show off her comely figure and match the three-colour leggings that so closely hug her lower form.

But it is her eyes that seize the attention, piercing blue like azure pools, occasionally blinking indolently as she kisses the air with full longing lips that seem to pout with sullen promise.

Some say she is cursed, yes, but she knows no other way of being and for time beyond counting she has been drawn to a certain happenstance.

Today she watches unseen on the window ledge while a college-aged girl receives a spanking. The girl is pretty and beside herself with shame at such treatment. Indeed she has forcefully suggested that she is too old to be spanked, but her tutor, a man of old-fashioned bent has no ears for such protests.

The girl appears much the same age as the Harlequin, although in truth centuries separate them. She tall and leggy with a smooth dome of a bottom now bared above tight denims that have been pulled down along with her scanty’s to mid-thigh. Her long blonde hair whips freely as she bounces and bawls across the mentorial lap.

“I have had it with you young lady,” the man scolds her, “You have been asking for this for a long, long time. By the time I am done with you, you won’t sit down for a week.”

“You bastard, I’ll call the cops, I’ll go to the authorities, you fucking pervert I’ll have you arrested, I’ll… I’ll…” the girl chokes on a sob, then brokenly adds “Eeeh, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… stop it, stop it… please…”

“I thought you were going to have me arrested,” the man snorts as he spanks her harder, “so I might as well get my money’s worth.”

The girl’s bottom is red beyond red now, a real tenderised state that only comes from a spanking given with true judicial zeal. Such spankings are all too rare in this era, the Harlequin thinks ruefully, so much so that when they happen she is drawn from between realms like a moth to a flame.

True she cannot resist, she is a slave to such events, even to the point of engineering them sometimes, even to the point… she blushes at the thought and turns her full attention back to the spanked young woman and her tormentor.

The girl is sobbing helplessly now, begging that she will do anything if he will only stop.

“I’ll stop when I am good and ready, then you can call the dean or whoever you like,” the tutor growls as he takes the spanking to another vigorous level.

“Oh God, no, no please… don’t tell anyone… please… I’m sorry…” she wails.

“Then you agree you deserve this?” the man snarls.

“Ooh,” she bawls, “I won’t do it again, I’m sorry… I…”

“I don’t like cheats,” the tutor says now somewhat mollified, “But if you’re really sorry…”

“I am,” the girl agrees emphatically, “Really I am.”

“Alright, but I want to see your nose in that corner while I check your work for any other little departures into plagiarism,” he tells her sternly.

The bare-bottomed girl looks panicked now. “I-I might have…” she gestures nervously to the papers in his hand.

“Your nose, right to the join in the corner and out your hands on your head,” he dismisses. “I am going to find out for myself and then we will… discuss it further.”

Harlequin watches for a while and drinks in the shameful woe of the spanked girl sniffing her regrets into the corner. The student’s bottom looks sore and far beyond such future spanking, for a while anyway. But there is a power in the act and Harlequin uses it now to weave a spell of acceptance around the girl, need even. Once her tutor has read her work he will spank her again and she will need and deserve it with no mercy for her tender behind. In their way both are locked in a spanking thrall that will haunt the rest of the young woman’s academic career and beyond. The magic will see to that. The corner will become a very familiar place in the coming years.

Harlequin watches the second act, feeding on it and binding the girl ever more tightly in her pain and shame. She will be interesting to revisit over the next 20 years or more. An hour longer, I think, she chuckles to herself as she drinks in further shameful tears. The girl doesn’t mind as much as she did, or won’t once the sting in her tails begins to approach bearable.

*

The town was a rich source of spanking events and Harlequin was in her element. The rules were simple; a woman full grown must suffer bottom-centric chastisement in the name of justice. The bottom must be bare and tears, however light, must be shed amid as much embarrassment as possible. This town it seemed had no shortage of such events.

A day after the spanking of the blonde, Harlequin found a landlord spanking his tenant. She was a small dark-haired woman with in a smart business suit and even smarter mouth. Ordinarily she might be considered a decade or more beyond such treatment and no doubt considered herself a career-focussed woman of standing.

Perhaps this spanking would have been an embarrassing one-of, a secret concealed and chalked up to experience. But Harlequin slipped unseen into the room and hunkered down in the corner. The punitive magic was strong and little-by-little the yelling woman was bound to the event, a spanking submission worked into the very fabric of her life.

Of course the spell would not linger if the woman did not champion injustice or truly chose another path. But the fact that Harlequin was drawn there at all proved that she must have deserved her spanking and where there was one need, another would soon follow. Bad habits die hard.

It was a pleasant evening followed by an afternoon watching a wife sent spanked and sent sore to her kitchen corner, a waitress made tender by her boss and a cherished sorority girl being guided through the subtleties of college life. Harlequin wondered how the blonde was getting on and how soon she would be summoned to a further spanking.

“A pretty little town isn’t it? And one so ready for your harvest of woe,” a dark voice said from nowhere.

Harlequin winced.

“Hello Grimaldi,” she said as she pulled a face. She didn’t want to turn around and face the dark immortal, but she knew he would turn up sooner or later. He always did.

“Up to your old tricks I see,” Grimaldi said sternly.

“They aren’t tricks,” Harlequin said defensively, “I am just following my nature.”

“Of course,” he said dryly, “But allow me to follow your nature too.”

“Allow you…?” she said huffily, finally taking a slow indolent glance at him over her should.

He was large and dark; black from his eyes to his boots and everything in between. Not that he lacked definition. His form was as powerful as it was sinister.

“A poor choice of words I grant you,” he shrugged. “Shall we get this over with?”

“Will we ever?” Harlequin said with a pout.

“You have ensnared a dozen pretty victims hereabouts ,” he replied accusingly, “I am guessing you are bound here for a decade or three. That is assuming you don’t add more victims. So as long as you are here I will know where to find you.”

Harlequin struggled with the pensive horror forming on her face and then a single tear dripped from a blue eye as she sagged.

“I had hoped you might not catch up for a decade or so,” she said miserably.

He shrugged again. “It happens sometimes, but I am as bound to the chase as you are.”

He crooked his finger and the immortal woman made a pout and began to leadenly approach.

“Leggings down if you please,” she was told, “For openers I’ll just use my hand.”

“How often… I mean…?” she whispered.

“Oh… once I have thoroughly put you in your place… well I suppose… shall we say two for one. And once for openers for every new… client of yours,” he answered.

Harlequin’s bottom was bare now and she lowered herself nervously across his lap. She had been spanked so often like this through the ages, but each time was like the first and each time she rued the tortured enmity of her shame. But just as she fed on the spankings of others, hers too were gist for the mill and if there was no Grimaldi then she would have to invent him.

Some say she was cursed.