Life takes an unexpected turn sometimes, it did for me and quite out of the blue I found out who I really was. My name is Tamsin Graham, a proud redhead and these days I am an IP lawyer. Of course nowadays the red hair gets some colouring assistance out of a bottle, but back in the day it was all natural. I was naturally red, naturally short, naturally loud-mouthed and of course I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Naturally

At 19 I had had a false start with my education and had dropped out of Business and Japanese Translation on account of being lousy at it. Back then the Japanese economy looked like it would grow forever and it had seemed like the right move. Maybe in hindsight I just had a lucky escape. My parents were pissed of course, so going home to them seemed like a masochistic move. So this genius decided to get a job in the boondocks.

I ended up working at a small family motel in North Carolina. They hired me because I ‘talked nice’ and knew how to handle the computer at the front desk. I answered the phone, kept track of bookings, did some petty accounts, and helped out with odd jobs now and then.

Of course back then this hopelessly fish-out-of-water kid thought she knew everything and I am sorry to say never missed an opportunity to tell everyone so.

The family lived in a big old house at the back of the motel and after realising that living in a rundown motel room for the summer was going to be no fun, I let Janine Brady, my boss, talk me into moving into the house with them.

Janine pretty much ran everything with her two daughters, a niece, and an old couple I only ever knew as Mr and Mrs Sessions who helped out with the cleaning and gardening.

Janine’s husband was rarely there, John Brady’s main occupation being that of a truck driver and as far as I could tell he was the main source of their income.

The daughters, Eloise and Riley, were part-timers on account of still being in high school, although the eldest was only a year younger than me. So that left me and Daytona, Janine’s 20-year-old niece, as the main help.

Janine herself looked way too young to have near grown-up kids and wasn’t in bad shape. She had arms like an athlete, with billiard-ball hips that she insisted in squeezing into cheap denims and she always wore a men’s work shirt knotted at her navel to bare her midriff. She must have been around 40, I suppose, and if it hadn’t been for the cheap bleach job and perennial dark roots, she would have looked younger still.

We got on well enough, but when she was out of sorts she had a mean temper and a sharp tongue that was mostly directed at her daughters and Daytona. At first I didn’t realise how tough she was with the girls, although during my first week Janine chewed Daytona out about the bed linen in one of the rooms.

“I’m getting to it,” Daytona whined and rolled her eyes like a much younger girl.

“I’ll be getting to your hind end with an apple switch if you don’t get to it quicker,” Janine shot back.

Daytona muttered “as if,” under her breath so that only I could hear, but I noticed she was blushing and quickly put down the magazine she was reading at the front desk.

The nearby town, which I won’t name, was small and everyone knew everyone. That pretty much left me as an outsider, although as everyone knew who I was and where I worked I couldn’t even get a beer. Not that I had a lot of time, working irregular hours six days a week as I did.

At first I read a lot, mostly while sitting at the front desk, an activity that soon bored me. So in my rare free time I quickly fell in with anything the others got up to. That, I suppose, was where the trouble began, although it finished, as always, with my mouth.

One day Eloise and Riley were playing an improvised game of baseball out back. They were using an old spade as the bat and swatting at rocks. I heard the crack against the wall, which was what caused me to leave the front desk. I mean it wasn’t as if we had any customers.

Instead of telling them to stop I kind of egged them on a bit and even hefted the spade myself once or twice. If you can already see where this is going then you’re one up on me that day. At least it wasn’t me who actually broke the window.

“Eloise Brady what on earth…?” Janine yelled as she rounded the corner, Eloise being the one still holding the spade.

“I was just…  I mean we were… ah…” Eloise replied sheepishly now red in the face.

In three strides her mother reached the girl and began hauling by the arm towards an old bench along the side wall.

“Mom,” the struggling Eloise protested.

Janine ignored her. “Where do you think you’re going Riley?” she growled and beckoned to her youngest daughter as she sat down and dragged Eloise across her lap.

“I was just…” Riley complained as no doubt she contemplated running for it.

It was then that I butted in, if you pardon the pun. “Janine… Mrs Brady,” I said, “It was just an accident, I am as much to blame as the girls.”

Janine glared at me and then turned her attention back to Eloise’s behind. In a blink she had pulled down the girl’s pants and panties and began slamming her open palm down hard across Eloise’s bare bottom.

“Nooo Mom, please,” Eloise yelled and quickly began straining under the onslaught.

Riley stood gaping and wringing her hands still glancing around for some escape, but I presumed knew better than to try and run.

Meanwhile Eloise’s bottom was real red and there were already some proper tears flowing.

“Mrs Brady,” I said haughtily, “You can’t do that, you just can’t…” I must have sounded like a real brat with a superior attitude.

Janine glared at me again and then at her window, “You know how much that costs?” she hissed. Then she yelled at Riley to fetch the hairbrush.

Riley, figuring maybe she might still get off, ran to do as she was told while I rolled my eyes.

The spanking continued for several minutes until Riley returned with the hairbrush and I tried again. “Mrs Brady, it is only a window, it was just a game… we were only horsing around I am sure…”

Janine didn’t say anything, but grabbed the brush and upped both the pace and the intensity of the spanking. This got some real howling from Eloise, whose bottom by then was bright red and real sore looking.

The spanking lasted maybe another five minutes until Janine let her sobbing daughter drop to the floor with a dark red and well-welted bottom. Then she beckoned to Riley for her turn.

I expected a protest, but the younger girl only pouted and trudged forward to get her spanking.

I couldn’t say if Riley got it worse. Janine skipped the hand spanking part but I guess the hairbrush spanking she got was much longer than her sister got. In any event she was left with a bottom in much the same state and was thoroughly bawling her head off by the time her mother was done.

“Mrs Brady,” I said, “That’s than absolutely appalling thing to do, your girls are way too old for a spanking and you…” I think I had my hands on my hips and was puffed up with the power of justice.

“You say you were as much to blame here?” Janine cut me off as she nodded at the broken window.

I think my jaw dropped as I saw what she was thinking. I remembered that I was barely a year older than Eloise. “Now Janine you can’t… come on…”

Janine didn’t rely on my cooperation, but stood up and grabbed my arm as she had Eloise. A moment later I was across her lap with my skirts rucked up and my panties heading in the general direction of hell.

“You can’t do this… I refuse… I’m not your daughter,” I yelled passionately and tried to elbow her thighs and kick her until she grabbed a wrist and pinned it into the small of my back. My face was burning with shame and I knew my bare bottom was sticking right up there.

My spanking began with a crisp thwack that felt like a furnace-hot flat-iron on my skin. Nonetheless, I was still more concerned with the embarrassing exposure and who might be around. We were outdoors after all.

“You can’t do this, you bitch, let me up,” I yelled angrily, still trying to knee her legs or even bite.

I head one of the girls gasp.

“Whoooa,” Janine gasped, “You really want to play it like that?”

Within a minute the sting had taken the wind out of my sails and I had never been so embarrassed.

“Please Mrs Brady, please,” I wailed, trying hard not to cry. Then I think I blurted, “Not here please, please not here,” It was a tacit admission that I was definitely going to get the rest of the spanking.

“Oh here is just fine,” Janine said emphatically, “Here is the scene of the crime, and here is where you bad-mouthed me.”

I started to cry. All of a sudden, just one great release and I was bawling like a kid. It didn’t save me, not by a damn sight. My bottom was dipped into hellfire for an hour and a day, or so it seemed and I could have sworn that I got it twice as long as the other two combined.

“Now that’s for the window,” Janine said at last.

I was sobbing hard. “Yes Mrs Brady. I am so sorry.” I found I was.

“Now you’re lucky I don’t send you for a switch just as you are for what you said. Instead you can take this,” Janine snarled.

Then the spanking began over and I was barking into the ground just inches from my nose. If you ever had a second spanking right after the first then you know that it hurts 10 times as much, as I found out. The spanks must have landed less than a second apart, but time drags and I felt everyone as it seared my tender exposed rear end. Exposed, that is, to anyone and everyone. Not that I cared just then. I mean a whole army of local boys could have been ogling my tail and I wouldn’t have cared half as much as ending the unrelenting blasting burn across my bare bottom.

An age passed before I realised the spanking was done, by which time my tail end was a blazing throb and my sobbing was wracking hard in my chest.

“Now you sports gals can stand and face this here side wall until I tell you to get,” Janine said with a note of satisfaction, “And I want to see those cherry red behinds cooling in the breeze while you stand there.”

Suddenly aware again of the public venue I sobbed, “But someone might see.” As I spoke my hands were clamped to my hot bottom as I jumped up and down.

“Then they will see I reckon,” Janine chuckled.

“But the front desk,” I tried again, I was horrified.

“I’ll watch the front desk, you stay here, or else you’ll fetch that switch we spoke about and you’ll be standing a time out in the corner out front of the desk and I don’t care who rolls up looking for a room, do you here?”

“Yes ma’am,” I gasped, I was now eager to please.

It took a while to collect myself and for the true mortification of the situation to sink in, but I took a lead from the girls who had jumped to obey their mother and were now standing stock still facing the wall.

The girls had been wearing denims and these were now around their ankles to let their butts show. Because of the dress I had to hold the skirts off my behind until Janine had given over scolding us and left us to it. I was planning to let it drop once she had gone but at the last moment she stooped down and gathered the cloth at my hip and tied it in a knot.

“That had better not ‘accidentally’ slip down or you will have that discussion with Mr Switch,” she warned me.

“No ma’am,” I agreed miserably.

“Now all of you, hands on head,” she barked.

This new shame brought on a fresh rush of blood to my face and I felt the whole world was looking at me. I must have willed myself to defy her a dozen times without acting and then she was gone.

“How long do we have to stay here? I mean, how long do you usually… you know?”  I sniffed. My bottom was still throbbing with waves of pain and my face still burned.

“Longer if she hears us whispering shit head,” Eloise muttered.

I tried to give her a nasty look with my half turned head, but Riley, the younger girl, was standing next to me and blocking my view and she just rolled her eyes. Whether this was a comment on me, the newbie and my naiveté, or whether this was a note to self: ‘here we go again,’ I thought it better not to ask.

For several minutes I tried to convince myself that I didn’t have to do this, but this was just a form of denial. When a gate somewhere banged in the breeze and I heard the front office door open my heart lurched and I had a new fear that someone was coming and would see.

Oddly, amid the embarrassment, I felt a warm tickling feeling that I had last felt sipping coffee in a dorm room with newfound freshmen friends in college. Back then it had felt like the sisters I never had and I realised it kind of did now.

My rational, would-be grown-up self, tried to tell me I was a victim of coercion, but that made me feel worse. So in the end I settled on viewing it as a cultural experience and took a deep sigh. All I could do was hope we didn’t get any customers strolling around the back looking for the john or the coke machine.

In the end we must have stood facing that wall for 40 minutes. I later learned that we got off easy, but I guess she needed me back at the front desk in case of a customer. Needless to say I did not use the chair for the rest of that day.

*

It was maybe two weeks before Eloise got another spanking. That I knew of anyway. Eloise was like me, a girl on the verge of womanhood and wanted to test her boundaries. These days I know that about myself, but back then I was convinced I was a fully formed adult and I knew it all.

Roughly speaking I noticed that Eloise was spanked twice for every spanking Riley got and about half the time they got it together. Riley was much more accepting, I thought, but Eloise always protested and gave her mom attitude.

Suffice to say I did not intervene and tried to stay out of the way. Well, not entirely. I guess I was curious, because whenever one of the girls was for it I dropped back to watch the action.

This was generally easy as Janine had no regard for discretion and tended to spank on the spot regardless of who was around. Then almost always the sobbing girl was sent to the corner or to face the nearest wall with her butt hanging in the breeze for at least an hour, and sometimes very much longer.

Daytona told me that her aunt went a little easier when her uncle was around and the girls, more often than not, got taken to their room, but not always, it would seem. She blushed at this last part and given my one experience, I guessed she had sometimes been nearer the action than she had liked.

“What about the switch? How does that work exactly?” I asked her one day.

Daytona blew a weary air kiss at my question and I thought she wouldn’t answer. Then with a sour expression she said, “You don’t ever want to find out.”

“Why would I?” I said with a confident casualness I no longer felt.

Daytona smirked and gave me a look that said, ‘you keep telling yourself that.’ I knew she must have heard about my spanking.

“There are some old apple trees out back, maybe 200 yards beyond the Magnolias…” she said with a shrug, as if that explained it all. Then after a moment added, “When we were kids, you know, big kids…”

“Like Eloise and Riley?” ‘And us,’ I might have added.

“Yah,” Daytona made a lemon face and she was blushing. She couldn’t meet my eyes, but I knew what we were both thinking.

“Well maybe after a spanking, so your butt was already bare, well you had to go out back and cut a switch or two off one of the trees. So embarrassing when there are folks about… I mean you can’t see much through the trees, but it was pretty obvious even from a distance that your bottom and legs were bare when you got sent to fetch one.” Daytona shrugged again.

“A switch you mean?” I whispered.

She nodded. “Then you had to come back and show Aunt Janine the switches and give them to her. Sometimes you had to go and stand a time out again. That was the worst, just waiting and knowing you were going to get it… real bad if there other kids and family around.”

“I bet,” I answered.

“If there were a few of us and it was summer, like a damn barbecue…” she went real red now and glanced at something across the yard. “Well then we had to bend over porch rail, or maybe a lawn chair or fence with your butt sticking out with everyone watching. Paulie and Brad never got it that I know, so real embarrassing when they were here with the folks.” She didn’t explain who they were but I found out later they were cousins. She continued, “Then you got your ass whipped real hard, a real stinger that leaves rakes as thick as your finger. There isn’t a girl that doesn’t yell their head off and cry like a baby.”

My jaw dropped as I pictured the scene.

“Maybe you would get two or three goes round with Aunt Janine, or sometimes my Ma going up and down the line. Then it was back to face the yard wall or side of the house for an hour or two… if’en we were outside. It worse at Thanksgiving if you were getting it alone…” she really blushed now. “Bent over the couch in the family room, butt sticking up and getting good in front of everyone. Corner time is a bitch when everyone is gathered at the table or just standing around drinking.”

“You ever get it?” I asked, but I knew the answer.

Daytona shrugged.

“When was the last time?” I pressed her eagerly. My head was spinning and suddenly I really wanted to know.

“Oh a ways back,” she shrugged again, but she looked shifty. “Come on, we had better get some work done.”

All this was on my mind and once I got used to the strangeness of it I took every opportunity to watch the girls get a spanking and drinking in every tear. That was before I really got to learn that there were plenty of tears to go around.

*

“I’m bored,” I confided to Daytona, “I can’t even get a beer in this town, not without getting hassled by the sheriff or Janine finding out. What do you do?”

Daytona took a smooth look around and put a coin in the coke machine. Then seeing we were alone she gave a hard stare.

“There is a place; me and some of my friends go sometimes. It’s just over the county line, in more ways than one, if you know what I mean?” she said conspiratorially.

“No, what do you mean?” I asked.

“The kind of place which is strictly first names only and no one asks for ID,” Daytona whispered. “You can come this weekend, but you have to promise not to tell the girls. If Aunt Janine finds out…” she left the notion hanging.

Heart did a little leap in its chest and if only I had listened, alarm bells were ringing somewhere a long way off. “I thought that these days you didn’t care what Janine thought,” I said. Daytona had said time and again that she was way too old for a spanking like her cousins. An assertion that always made me squirm, given my run-in with her aunt.

“I don’t,” Daytona pouted, her eyes evading mine, “But it would be just as well to avoid any unnecessary…” she glanced over shoulder before settling on, “misunderstandings.”

Despite some misgivings I agreed to meet Daytona at the turnpike. On her advice I went to bed early with a book but later left by the window. Janine had never bothered me in my room before and so long as we were as quiet getting back as we were leaving I saw no problem.

The less said about the bar the better. I spent all night fending off Daytona’s friends. And if it wasn’t them hitting on me then it was even seedier men with tobacco breath and shit-eating grins.

It was late when we got home, but neither of us was drunk. I did wonder if Daytona’s friend’s car didn’t get too close to the house before dropping us off, but why should anyone associate a passing car with us? Besides, what did have to do with Janine anyway? I looked at Daytona to draw on her usual cool confidence, but she looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“It’s later than I thought,” she whispered. She seemed apprehensive. “Are you sure no one heard you leave?”

I opened my mouth to reassure her, but suddenly I had no idea how stealthy my exit had been. Why I hadn’t I just told Janine I was going out? Why the subterfuge? What could she do about it anyway? I remembered the spanking and swallowed down a sudden lump in my throat. Well it had been different, hadn’t it? There had been damage and anyway I had been caught off-guard. There was no way I was going to accept… Daytona stopped stock still as something spooked her.

“What?” I hissed.

“N-nothing,” she answered and carried on towards the house.

My window was firmly shut and I felt that heart-lurch of panic.

“It sticks sometimes,” Daytona said confidently. “The window next to the kitchen door can’t be locked. I usually go in that way.”

I wish I had been convince and tried to remember if I had even shut the window.

As it happened Daytona was right and we slipped into the kitchen without a sound. Not unless you count the faint snoring from somewhere or the oddly loud ticking of the clock.

You know how it is when you can feel something coming from a long way off. You might not know exactly what it is, only that you feel it. It is a feeling that like a freight train heading your way, you had best get out of the way or meet it head on.

I tried to shake off the feeling. “What time is it?” I whispered, as if that mattered now.

The light came on. “It is just before three,” Janine said, appearing from nowhere.

Given her tone I might have been more relaxed and opened up a conversation, like, ‘why are you still up Janine?’ But I saw the sick look on Daytona’s face and that freight train slammed into my guts.

“There was a meteor shower,” Janine continued, “Riley was very excited and thought that you two wouldn’t want to miss it. I wasn’t sure you were in Daytona, but you went to bed with a book, didn’t you Tamsin?”

“I… I eh went out… we were in town,” I muttered.

“And that was something to lie about?” Janine merely sounded curious.

“We were with Richie and the guys,” Daytona ventured in an oddly strangled tone. “You know how it is?”

“Oh, I do,” Janine agreed, but her voice had a slight edge now. “You were with Richie all this time? Doing what?”

Daytona’s face held a sour expression and fixed her gaze on a spot in the floor.

“I didn’t mean to lie, I just… eh, changed my mind about going out,” I said, “We went to this bar in the next town… I know we shouldn’t drink but we only…”

“You went to Bixby until three in the morning?” Janine folded her arms.

“N-no, we went…” I remembered what Daytona had said about not speaking about the bar and shut up. I looked at her for some support.

“Cassidy’s Roadhouse,” she admitted, forgetting all she had told me.

Janine nodded as if she had already guessed. “Cassidy’s,” she snorted, “Back in the day me and your mom went there; strictly out of bounds of course. I mean, I can’t blame my folks for being uneasy about an 18-year-old with a 20-year-old hanging out with drunks, pimps and heaven knows what. I doubt it has changed much, has it?”

“No ma’am,” Daytona whispered.

“Who-ee, do you know how many switches your ma and me cut the next day? I can still feel them all,” Janine said with a false bonhomie, but her eyes were steel hard.

“Aunt Janine, we just…” Daytona sounded fragile.

“Go to bed, both of you, tomorrow we will have a good long talk,” Janine snarled.

“Yes Ma’am,” Daytona replied and scurried away before I could agree.

I paused and considered pre-empting any confrontation. I was pretty much still in denial about what was to come. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know….” I explained.

“Sure you did,” Janine contradicted me. She shook her head.

I wanted to argue again, but my heart pounded in my chest and I couldn’t even meet her eyes.

“What am I going to do about you?” Janine said in a motherly tone.

I opened my mouth to answer but she just repeated the order to go to bed.

*

The day came suddenly in a surge of light and birdsong and I yawned as I tried to remember something important. I worked my mouth free of dust and sat up. My bottom was bare against the sheets where my sleep shirt had rucked up and last night’s events found their way to my conscious mind.

“Tamsin,” Janine was calling. It sounded as if it wasn’t for the first time and I realised that she must be the reason I was awake.

“Just a moment,” I yelled, or tried to, my voice was thick.

The bedroom door opened and Riley stood there gaping at me as if she were trying to fathom the mysteries of the ages. In response I shrugged quizzically.

“Mom wants you,” she said, “She sounds pretty pissed, did you get in late last night?”

“I need to get dressed,” I said, I gestured at my bare legs.

“You’re wearing as much as Daytona is and Mom said right now,” Riley’s expression and tone conveyed regret.

“What the fudge,” I muttered, although I might have used another word as I swung my legs clear of the covers and stood up.

“Tamsin,” Janine yelled again.

I thought better of looking for my jeans and followed Riley, tugging at the hem of my shirt in back to cover any embarrassment.

There was the smell of coffee coming up the stairs, but the breakfast odours belied the fact that the day already felt too warm.

“There you are sleeping beauty,” Janine growled as I entered the kitchen-diner.

Janine was standing at the island drinking coffee, while Eloise sat nearby eating cereal from a blue striped bowl.

I pushed the hair off my face and yawned, “Yeah sorry, I must have…” I began, but that was when I saw Daytona. “Shit,” I gasped.

Riley was right, Daytona was wearing even less than I was; namely nothing but a shorty bed shirt that barely reached her hips. Only the fact that she was facing the wall with her hands on her head prevented me from seeing her lady garden, as my mother called it. Even so, Daytona was showing the world her bare behind and judging from the blush that had reached her ears, even from where I stood I could see she wasn’t exactly thrilled about the situation.

“Like Daytona, you live under my roof and like Daytona I owe you a duty of care,” Janine said quietly.

“I’m not a child,” I protested. I wish I sounded more certain.

“You’re under 21, and in this state that matters,” Janine sighed, she sounded almost regretful. “Not that age ever cut much ice in this family,” she warned.

“I’m…” I swallowed.

“You see Daytona, go stand next to her,” Janine said sharply.

Eloise was smirking over her bowl and I looked at Janine for any sign of reason.

“You want to go over my knee first?” she said.

“Fine,” I muttered and noisily scraped a kitchen stool as I passed the island and headed over to the wall next to Daytona.

I placed my palms on the wall next to her and slouched.

“Stand up straight and put your hands on your head,” Janine barked.

I sucked air through my nose and strained my brain for a way out. I could just leave, I could just…

“Hands, on head,” Janine snapped more sharply.

I obeyed. Blood heat surged to my face and my tummy did flip-flops. I realised that the action of raising my arms had lifted the hem of my short bed shirt off my bottom and I was almost as exposed as Daytona.

Eloise giggled and I think even Riley gave a little snigger.

“Now once I have done the dishes you girls are going to take a little trip out back and cut me some switches,” Janine explained. “Daytona knows the way. You can wait there until then.”

Next to me my older friend sighed and I risked a side glance. Daytona wore a miserable pout and tears pooled at her eyes. I got it, or thought I did. This was so embarrassing.

“Did you get a time-out, ladies?” Eloise hissed once her mother had moved away to do the dishes. “Like little itty bitty children.” She cooed.

Daytona sucked in air through her nose and stifled something like a sob.

I just shrugged; I had already seen Eloise standing in the same position more than once. But that wasn’t now, I realised, and my face burned a little more. In those days camera phones weren’t so common, if they had been I think my butt would have been sent around Eloise’s high school like a bulletin. That wasn’t going to stop her recounting every detail come September, which would be much worse for Daytona.

“Right you two, I’ll be 20 minutes, you had better not move,” Janine called over.

“Don’t move,” Eloise warned us gleefully as she moved away.

We didn’t dare, but our faces burned with the humiliation.

*

I could hardly believe that we were being shooed out into the yard practically naked. Through the thin nightshirt I hugged my breasts in panic, although it was my tail end that was exposed. I glanced in horror towards the back of the motel building. There weren’t many guests, but those few could easily be strolling around out back looking for more facilities we didn’t have. Mercifully there was no one.

“Oh yah, it happens,” Daytona said miserably, as if she had been reading my mind, “But not today, I already checked.”

We were standing in the yard at the side of the house heading for the trees out back. Remembering what Daytona had already told me, I felt a tingle in my tummy. What I really thought it is hard to say. I was certainly curious. The embarrassment I have already mentioned, but my fear was muted as I had no real prior experience, maybe it was like that of a moviegoer who is terrified by the picture, but has to stay to see how it turns out. Also in a strange way being outside was kind of sexy. It was a feeling I couldn’t deal with then, not in that situation anyway, so I fixed on the camaraderie. Daytona, Riley and even Eloise felt like the sisters I had never had.

“You don’t have to do this… I mean we don’t have to…” I said, about then I was feeling stupid and wondered why I didn’t quit.

“Yeah we do,” Daytona groaned, “Least I do. You don’t know Janine and my Ma.”

“But you said…” I began.

“I say a lot of things, but we both know it is all horse shit.” Daytona pursed her lips and shrugged. “There ain’t a girl in these parts who doesn’t get a licking when she is due one. None of us admit it and we can only hope that none one finds out.”

“Eloise is going to tell,” I pointed out.

Daytona gave me a sour look and shrugged again. “Sure she is, but like I say, she and everyone else get it just the same. It is a subject that will draw giggles and whispers for a day or two, but generally girls in glasshouses and all that.”

“Okay, so it looks like we are going to get it then,” I said with a lick of my lips. I was out of sorts with the day and had never felt like this before. Adventure beckoned. “So what do we do?”

“We go out where we can no longer be seen, from the house anyway, and then we cut a whole parcel of switches,” Daytona told me. As she spoke she held up a small pocket knife. “Janine’s,” she explained.

“What exactly is a switch, I mean I know, but what does it involve for us, what does it look like?” I asked. I was curious.

Daytona laughed for the first time that morning. “Well honey child, you are about to find out.”

*

In the end Daytona did all the work. I noticed once we got to the thickest part of the stand of trees where we were not easily seen from the road she became distracted by her task. Her brow furrowed and she even stuck out her tongue a little as she set about tugging on thin branches with an expert eye and either cutting them or rejecting them. One might have thought she was out gardening.

“You have done this before,” I said.

She gave me a side look and pouted. “Best to get this part over with,” she said and glanced nervously towards the back fence and the road beyond.

“There’s no one there,” I said, but my tummy churned suddenly as I double checked. “We’re just two chicks out for a stroll giving our butts an airing.” I tried to sound cheerful.

“Not today,” she agreed, but she shuddered.

I nodded, but checked again. “You mentioned Paulie and Brad before?”

“Cousins on my Dad’s side… the same age as us, always kidding around. We went to school together,” Daytona explained. “They didn’t tease… much… and didn’t blab neither. But they sure got an eyeful from time to time, and at their leisure too.” She was blushing as hard as I had yet seen her.

I could picture it and my face became hot too. It kind of tickled somewhere too, but maybe that was just the thought of boys seeing me naked. “Well they are not here today. All we have is Eloise.”

But Daytona wasn’t listening. “Oh God,” she whispered and I thought she might cry.

“Hey it’s okay,” I said. I mean I had butterflies, but in the spirit of adventure I wondered how bad it could be.

“Sure, I am such a cry baby, or will be. But I really hate the switch,” she sniffed and wiped an eye.

“I guess we kind of deserve it though.” No one was more surprised than me that I had said that.

Daytona gave me a funny look and I couldn’t read her. Then she shrugged.

“That should do it,” she sighed and hefted a thick bundle of two-foot twigs.

“That many,” I gasped.

“A dozen I reckon, we don’t want to have to come back. Janine has never needed more than three and that only if the first two breaks.” Daytona looked glum.

“She can wear out three on our bare butts,” I said incredulously.

“That’s three each,” the older girl said pointedly, “If we are unlucky. Come on, let’s head back before someone comes by.”

*

When we got back Daytona and I had to face the wall again while Janine checked out the crop of tail torturers.  Our hands went back on our heads to expose our bottoms behind, prompting some comments from Eloise.

“So smooth, so white,” she observed as she eyed our tail ends. “But not for long.”

“Eloise, go check on the reception,” Janine said absently as she studied the switches.

“Riley is out there,” Eloise said, but she moved away to put herself out of mind.

We stood for what seemed an age before Janine told us both to bend over the back of the couch. I might have rebelled at this point but Daytona moved sullenly and flopped over back without another word. It was kind of weird to see her bare bottom just sticking up like that, but oddly good weird and I thought it would be a betrayal to back out now. Not that I thought I could. I figured Janine would just spank me until I asked nicely to take part like a good girl. So with a deep breath I joined my friend over the coach.

We were both just hanging backsides up for what seemed like an age. It was so undignified. I could feel air tickle my bare bottom and the press of the padding on my belly. Daytona shifted about next to me and I tried to catch her eye, but she kept her head down and covered by her hair.

“I have never said you couldn’t go to Cassidy’s,” Janine said at last.

“No ma’am,” Daytona replied.

“But I shouldn’t need to. You think your mom would agree?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And you? You think it was a cool place?” Janine asked me.

“No ma’am, I am sorry I went,” I said.

“Not as sorry as you are going to be,” my boss and surrogate mother said with some steel in her voice.

There was a sharp swish and a muted crack. As I startled I heard Daytona hiss and felt her jerk next to me. I tensed up as three or four more times the switch cut the air and bit into Daytona’s bare bottom.

Her little grunts and groans got louder and more pained until she finally made a drawn out sniffing sound. With every crack of the switch I felt my friend react and bump against me and now she was shaking gently and I knew she was crying.

Then the next crack ended across my bottom in a razor slash and I screamed. I tried to jump up, but gravity and my head down posture just held me, so only my bare bottom jack-knifed up and down. The biting slice continued to cut in until it was joined by another line of pain a moment later.

“Bitch,” I screamed and slammed my fists into the back of the sofa as I rocked up and down some more.

“Oh she is,” Janine said and switched me again.

I yelled and silently thanked the woman for cutting me some slack. I was already crying copiously, but the yelling at each stroke made the butt carving slightly more bearable, that is not at all.

I got maybe six or seven cuts before Janine switched back to Daytona’s bare bottom, each line of searing burn not fading the least bit across my own behind.

Next to me Daytona yelled and bawled as she rocked up down and buffeted against the sofa.

“Auntie, auntie, please I’m sorry,” she wailed, sobbing freely now.

Too quickly it was my turn again and I am sure I cursed amid some incoherent babbling. Nor could I keep still as I danced belly down across the back of the sofa under the onslaught.

I cannot say how many times Janine switched between bottoms as our punishment continued. To me it was as if hours past. But finally we were limp and sobbing, bottoms throbbing as if on fire.

“I ought to finish these up,” Janine was saying, in my pain addled misery I had no idea she meant the switches we had brought, “But our little first timer is cooked,” she continued. “But if you ever, I mean ever go back to Cassidy’s, either of you, I will spank you so that you can’t sit down for a month and send you out back for a dozen switches each and I will use every last one of them.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Daytona said miserably.

I nodded, unable to speak for crying.

“Okay, stand up,” Janine sighed. “The folks are coming over later; I have a lot to do. You too can get your sorry little bottoms over to face that wall. Noses and toes mind, I want to see your hands on heads and cherry tails on view.”

“The folks?” Daytona sniffed, horror was etched on her face. I didn’t care much; I was still clawing at my bottom as my breathing competed with my tears for my lungs.

“Paulie and Brad are coming over,” Eloise gloated in a sing-song voice.

“Please Aunt Janine,” Daytona pleaded.

“Noses touching that wall,” Janine barked impatiently.

Neither of us needed telling again.

*

It took a while for the raging fire that used to be my bottom to ease off enough to allow me to think. Even then the unrelenting throb had to compete with a rasping soreness that quite literally kept me on my toes as I struggled not to cry again. I could feel every tight line of pain, although I could not resist surreptitiously probing the welts with my fingers when I thought no one was watching; this, even though I winced at every touch and had to quickly withdraw my hands. All the same I was fascinated by the raised ridges the hot tight textures that now marred my once smooth bottom. I also had an odd tingle in my tummy I could neither then describe nor explain. I could only say that I felt thoroughly clean to my soul and thoroughly put in my place. The latter feeling was somehow nice.

I could not have articulated this at the time, but I think now that I had pushed hard at the limits of my world until, in the guise of Janine, the world had pushed back and let me know that it gave a damn about what I did.

Then little by little my awareness expanded beyond a very sore bottom and I became aware of how embarrassingly exposed I was. I could hear Daytona sniffing right next to me and every once in a while I could hear her muttering, “God, oh God.”

I also heard Eloise still sniggering and Riley’s awed gasps of “wow.”

“If you dare move you are so gonna get it,” Eloise teased. “If’n you don’t…”

“Jeeze, yeah…” Riley gasped in horror, “Paulie and Brad will see.”

Hot blood flooded my face and I almost turned away from facing the wall. But Daytona gave out a sob and I cast a glance sideways.

“Maybe she will let us go before anyone comes,” I whispered. It seemed likely to me as we must have been standing in time out for at least 40 minutes by then.

“Maybe,” Daytona answered with a heavy sigh.

“In a pig’s eye,” Eloise scoffed.

“Oh don’t Elly,” Riley sounded almost sympathetic.

I heard Daytona sniff hard as if she were about to cry and then she said in tear-touched voice, “I’ll never live this down.”

“You mean no one ever got spanked like this around here?” I said, not knowing what I thought.

“Sure Elly and me… remember… that time…” Riley blurted excitedly.

“Shut up Riley,” Eloise said sullenly.

“It will be okay,” I said, knowing it would be, although by then I was talking to myself amid a cocktail of embarrassment, excitement and curiosity.

The first I knew we had visitors was when Janine said, “Ignore them, we had a little talk a while back.”

“So I see,” a strange woman chuckled.

My heart lurched and beat 20 to the dozen and I thought my face would melt. Then someone wolf whistled and a male voice said, “Who’s the new kid?”

I could have died.

*

That was how I met Brad and Paulie. Nor was it to be the last time I cut switches for Janine. In addition I must have got a spanking half a dozen times for every switching over the two years I stayed.

It took me a while to work out that I was getting spanked way more than Daytona and even the younger girls. Even longer to work out that that was what I needed. I think too that I engineered most of my confrontations, although I would never have admitted that at the time; even to myself.

I think Janine knew. Sometimes she would just catch up with me when I was out walking to think things over. She might say something like, “You’ve been getting mighty antsy lately.”

I would shrug and look at my shoes and blush.

“You wanna wait for the explosion or should we go upstairs for a little talk and clear the air?” she would continue.

I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me at such times; I could never admit what I was feeling. But luckily Janine would save me and say, “Come on girl.”

She would take me somewhere quiet, take me over her knee and spank my bare bottom 20 shades of scarlet. I always howled like a little kid until I was sobbing and snotty. Then she would put me in the corner to calm down until I felt safe and a sense of belonging.

Then there were the times I just plain crossed the line and she would make sure that I couldn’t sit down for a day or two, usually for the edification of Riley and Eloise.

I loved it too when their turn came, especially when Eloise got a spanking. Daytona and I used to mock her mercilessly when she had to go out back and cut switches. She was always such a sore loser; very sore.

It was Janine who encouraged me to first do a correspondence course and later to go back to college. Eventually I had to move back to the city to train as a lawyer but the motel was always another home for me. From time to time I would even get a spanking, even after I turned 30 and the other girls had long since moved on.

These days I have other people to guide me and other discoveries to make. One day I might get too old for a spanking and then maybe I will pass on what I discovered to others.