“What is it for exactly?” the proprietor asked.

He was an old-fashioned sort of cove, with a grey tweed suit and silver shading at his temples amid otherwise salt and pepper hair. Although he had a friendly manner, he had a somewhat severe way of peering down at her over his thin wire specs.

Jane blushed as she took an uncomfortable stance and looked around the shop. Mercifully there were no other customers among the rows and racks of umbrellas, parasols and assorted walking sticks, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“You have the look of an educationalist,” the man said pleasantly, “Perhaps you have students, a finishing school perhaps?”

“Does it matter?” Jane whispered.

She couldn’t meet his eyes and dipped her head so that a rich cascade of curled red hair fell like gold across her oval face. Her deep hazel eyes gave them a green aspect, flecks of gold on blue that seemed to change from one colour to the other in the morning light streaming through the Victorian shop front.

“If you want to find the right stick, then it does help to know what you want it for,” the man smiled. “For instance, we sell riding crops, but it helps to know if the intend use is for a pony, a horse or shall we say a more tender crupper.”

“I want a cane,” she whispered, looking around again.

“Indeed, I think we have established that you want something from our punitive range, but is this for use abroad in an official capacity, in which case there will be regulations you might need to factor in or…?” he continued pleasantly.

“It is for me, alright,” she said more sharply than she meant.

“Yes of course but…” he wondered for a moment why she was repeating herself and then he caught her gaze.

“It’s for caning me,” she virtually mouthed.

“Ah,” he nodded and let his gaze stray to her behind. “A husband or a guardian?” he asked.

Jane’s pale freckle-dashed face went peony and she bowed her head so that a curtain of hair hid her expression. “Husband,” she squeaked.

“Is this for… recreational purposes?” he inquired delicately.

Jane shook her head as she bit her lip. “I am supposed to ask as part of my… my punishment,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry?” he smiled awkwardly, “I didn’t quite catch that,” and he hadn’t.

“The cane is for caning me, as punishment, a sound caning on my… b-bare bottom,” she blurted louder than she meant. Then looking hastily around she added, “I have to stand in the corner before and after you know.”

She found an odd thrill in telling him last part and wondered if she should add that her bottom was left bare and exposed too.

“And how many strokes do you usually have to suffer?” the proprietor asked pleasantly.

Jane swallowed and shot a glance at the shop door which had just opened.

“As many as necessary, it depends on how bad I have been,” she told him in all seriousness.

“Yes but… I mean, are we talking six of the best or… something more substantial?” he pressed her.

Jane leaned forward and beckoned him in close. “My husband’s great aunt went to a teaching academy in Kenya, they used a military grade what’s-a-name… on the girls… the women I mean. Like dozens of strokes, more than 30 I think.” She was unaccountable excited to recount the tale and urged him with her eyes when she added, “Do you know about such places?”

“In Kenya you say,” he said, pronouncing it Keen-ya, “It was quite common up until as late as the 1980s. I knew several such places in fifties and sixties; good customers.”

“My husband said to tell you if you asked, said you would know,” she hissed.

“I am beginning to get the picture yes,” he beamed. “Now if you step over here I have one or two that might fit the bill…”

*

Jane already had tears pooled in her eyes and offered him a pout as she eyed the long medium grade stick in her husband’s hand.

“That corner time was too long,” she accused him.

Her hand strayed to caress her bare thigh, but she made no attempt to cover up the triangle of fire-red hair dressing her sex. She hated that her bottom was bare but that he had made her keep her sweater on. It made the whole situation seem more like punishment than sex.

Of course that was the point as he had impatiently told her a dozen times now.

David was a head taller than her and almost a decade and a half older. She liked that he wore proper trousers and a jacket for caning her, but it also made her shudder with nerves.

“The corner time was as long as I needed it to be, and nowhere near as long as you will stand there after I have caned you.”

She tried to glower at him, show him some angry defiance, but he had the same severe manner she had encountered in the shop.

“You can bend over the back of the sofa,” he said sternly.

She pouted in distaste, but really she was scared. Nevertheless she obeyed and with some elegance folded herself over the brown leather to make her bare bottom uppermost.

He eyed her fulsome curves and tried to remember that this was serious, although the other rod in his possession wanted to play. He ignored it. He considered giving her two dozen in one go, but it would be kinder to them both he applied two lots of 15.

“Bottom up and head down,” he warned as he lined up the cane.

She barely heard the swish-swosh as she kept talking. “My head is down and… ow,” she squealed, the first line of fiery pain cutting in.

David waited 10 seconds before he caned her again. He would throw in a couple of pauses and make the first set last five minutes.

“David, David,” Jane said in a panicked voice as she clawed at the leather.

“Hush,” he soothed as he caned her again.

“David…” she wailed, “I’m sorry.”

“I know, I do love you,” he said paternally.

She nodded vigorously. “I love you too.”

After the third stroke she tried to keep quiet. The corner would be a treat after this.