High Staes

Four female work colleagues spice up their usual Tuesday night card game with spanking forfeits.

*****

"How about making the game a bit more interesting?" Judith suggested. That woke us all up. "How about a higher stake than just a few pennies?"

"What do you mean, Judith?" asked Rashani. "I can't spare any more money, really...".

"That wasn't quite what I had in mind", grinned Judith, white teeth flashing. We all stared expectantly, but Judith was just sitting there, smiling, watching our faces.

"Well what, then?" asked Claire impatiently.

"How about a spanking?" Judith asked. Just like that.

I can still vividly remember that moment. We were sitting around the kitchen table in Judith's flat; myself, Rashani, Judith and Claire. We were all co-workers in a local insurance office, and friends of a sort. It was Tuesday night - our cards night. Really, it was just a social evening - an excuse for us to go around to each others' houses and drink some wine and gossip a little. Each of us took a turn to play hostess to the gathering, and that night was Judith's turn.

It was always the same four of us. Judith was the oldest, although no more than 30; a tall black woman with a figure that could be described as 'statuesque'; all curves, and a bust that we all envied. She was a bit like the mother figure to the office: mostly genial, but woe betide you if you stepped out of line! Rashani was her exact opposite; a petite Indian girl, barely 20. She was as slim as Judith was voluptuous, as quiet as Judith was loud, and dressed as conservatively as Judith was flamboyant, but they were nevertheless firm friends. Claire was something of the odd one out. I always thought of her as too much the 'Essex girl'; a bit brash and tarty, although she was always good fun. Maybe I was just pigeonholing her, but it was the way she never dyed her hair often enough, so that the dark roots showed beneath the bottle blonde curls, and the incredibly short mini-skirts she used to wear. She even confessed to owning a pair of white stilettoes, although I'd never seen her wear them to work!

And me? I'm Liz. I guess I thought of myself as the clever one. The one with a degree, the one who was going places in the company, all smart executive suits to Judith's floral prints, Rashani's conservative dresses and Clare's miniskirts. A bit of a snob, if truth be told.

So, anyway, we played cards once a week. Some time ago at one of our evenings, someone (probably Claire), had suggested that we make things 'more interesting' by playing for money, albeit only a few pennies per point. That being the case, the hostess always got to choose what game we played - like a 'home team' advantage. For myself and Rashani, it was Bridge (we always partnered each other and did quite well out of it), for Claire, it was, unsurprisingly, Poker, at which she excelled (see what I mean about her?). For Judith, the favoured game was Hearts.

You all know Hearts -- at school we always used to call it Black Maria, after the Queen of Spades, but that's probably not PC anymore. It's on all of the copies of Windows these days and so now it's just Hearts. It's played to the rules of Whist, but in Hearts the idea is not to win tricks, but to avoid penalty points. The hearts are all worth one each, and the Queen of Spades is worth thirteen points. So when we played Hearts we'd total the points at the end of the evening, and everyone paid 10p times the difference between their score and the winner's to whoever had managed to achieve the lowest total. It wasn't exactly Las Vegas, but the winner could expect to come away about twenty pounds better off.

Money was one thing, but as for spanking...

Judith allowed us all a few seconds to take in what she had said, enjoying watching the reactions on our faces.

"You think I'm joking, don't you?" she smiled. "No, why not? Instead of money, every penalty point you get means a slap on the backside. I'll bet it'll encourage better play than you've all managed so far tonight."

We all considered, trying to visualise it in our minds' eye. Actually, it sounded pretty exciting, but I suppose no-one wanted to be the first to say yes, for fear of looking like a kinky slut in front of her workmates.

"I'm game," declared Claire. Her tone was challenging, as if to say, 'I've got more bottle than you lot'. I couldn't let her get away with that.

"Fine by me," I said, trying not to sound nervous. Everyone turned to stare at poor Rashani, who was blushing furiously. I could see from her expression that she didn't really like the idea, but she wasn't going to let herself be left out.

"Er, yes, I suppose so..." she said quietly.

"Right then," Judith said triumphantly. "I'll get the instrument."

Instrument? What did she mean by that? She got up and disappeared into the next room, where we could hear a drawer opening and closing. No-one spoke. What do you say at a time like that?

Judith came back swinging a big heavy black leather strap, about 18 inches long, and divided in two for half of its length, like a Scottish tawse. It was obviously made purely for the purpose of punishment. We all eyed it nervously. There had always been rumours about the kind of things Judith liked to get up to with her (various) boyfriends, but here was the living proof. It looked quite menacing, dangling there in front of us. I knew that Claire and Rashani, like me, were all thinking about that tawse landing on our backsides, with Judith's quite muscular arm behind it!

"I thought perhaps you meant with, er, our hands..." I said weakly.

"Well that's hardly a punishment, now is it?" Judith said, sitting back down. "In fact, a lot of people quite enjoy it." She laid the tawse on the table next to her, where everyone continued to stare at its ominous presence.

As one of the more mathematically minded, I had been calculating, and didn't like what I had come up with. "But not ten... smacks per point, surely?" I put in, "each round of Hearts has a possible 26 penalties - we'll all be black and blue!"

"Maybe just the one belt per point", agreed Judith, "since this is your first time. I'll tell you what: you remember you get to pass on three cards to another player. We'll go one round of four, like on the computer - each deals once, passing on your discard cards to your left first time, then opposite, then right, then opposite again. And any points you get in each round are taken out on you by the person who gave you the cards, so that it's not always the same person."

We all agreed. We would have agreed to anything, at that stage. The threatening black leather presence of the tawse on the table seemed to have drained everyone's willpower, even the normally talkative Claire.

Judith shuffled the deck of cards and passed them to Rashani to deal. There was a palpable sense of excitement around the table now. The twinge of fear at having to be beaten in front of one's friends was mixed with the anticipation of watching it happen to someone else. Or even of doing it to someone else. What would it feel like? I discovered that I was actually turned on by the whole idea; I could feel my nipples hardening inside the confinement of my bra, and a spreading warmth lower down. Judith was right - it had certainly made the game more interesting!

The first round was a pretty tense affair, even though I received a good hand in the deal - lots of low cards. I made a really bitchy lead, dropping several points on Judith from the word go, for which I got a very sour look indeed! Judith is a good player, however - it is her chosen game, after all - and managed to avoid any more penalties. I also stayed well out of things - I'm quite a good card player myself - leaving Rashani to be unlucky and collect six hearts, and Claire, a poor player, to harvest the remaining 16. I breathed a sigh of relief once the last card had been played. No smacks for me!

"Who's going to start, then?" I asked innocently, perhaps even smugly. Judith gave me a look like thunder.

"Start to the dealer's left", suggested Claire. That was me. And Claire was my appointed target. She probably wanted to get it over with quickly.

"Lean over the table, Claire," ordered Judith. Claire complied, and Judith reached over to start pulling down Claire's tight black leather jeans, and tug down her almost indecently brief black thong knickers.

"Here - what the hell do you think you're doing!" shouted Claire, struggling to stand up. Judith smiled indulgently and pushed her gently but firmly back down onto the kitchen table.

"It has to be on the bare bum, otherwise there's no point," she said conversationally, as if discussing the weather.

"Well..." Claire sounded uncertain. "Just hurry up then." She wasn't blushing, I noticed. No shame, this girl. I took the tawse and moved to stand to one side of her, where I could aim better.

"Sixteen, Claire," Judith reminded her. "Just stay put, won't you." It didn't sound like a question. Judith's big hand remained on the small of Claire's back just to be certain.

I found myself staring at Claire's bottom. I had to admit it was quite a pert and pretty one. She was quite tanned, and we could see in this position that it was definitely all over -- either she sunbathed naked or it came straight out of a bottle. I know what my money was on. The position she was bent over in also meant that her pubic mound was peeping between the gap in her legs. I noticed wisps of dark pubic hair and couldn't help myself:

"We always knew you weren't a natural blonde..." I joked.

"Fuck off Liz, you snotty bitch, and just get on with it," Claire said, annoyed.

"Temper, temper," I murmured.

I lifted the leather strap, and brought it down onto her waiting buttocks. There was a splat sound, but not a whisper from Claire. A slight reddening began where the leather had landed.

"Oh for God's sake, Liz," Judith sighed, disappointed, "can't you do any better than that? Harder, girl!"

I did it harder. In fact, frankly, I laid on a few stingers. I didn't like Claire much, so it wasn't difficult to get into the swing of things. I started to thwack that tawse down with all my might. With each crack the red flush deepened and spread across her backside, and Claire began to jump at each stroke. By the end of sixteen, when I stopped, flushed, and panting, Claire's arse was a bright red colour, with some of the individual marks quite clearly visible, and she was shouting and yelping and swearing, twisting under Judith's strong arms that still held her pinned to the table.

Judith let her stand up. "Jesus!" Claire said, rubbing her injured posterior, "that fucking hurt, Liz you bitch!"

"Maybe it'll encourage you to play better," I said, perhaps a little snootily. I couldn't resist it. I handed her the tawse. "Your turn."

Judith was already settling down onto the table and hoisting up her skirt to reveal a large expanse of black flesh across the swelling curves of her womanly buttocks, covered by a very delicate-looking pair of lacy white panties, which she also dragged down, allowing us to note that she was completely shaven down below, her crinkled pink lips jutting proudly and a stark contrast to the silky dark flesh around them. She seemed quite used to the situation and looked back questioningly over her shoulder as if to say; 'get on with it, then'. No-one even dared to hold her down - not that any of us thought she'd need it.

Claire was less than kind, still smarting from the tanning I'd given her, and Judith's four strokes sounded like pistol shots in the confined space of the kitchen. Nevertheless, at the end of it, Judith calmly stood up, pulled up her knickers, smoothed down her skirt, and took the tawse off Claire.

"Right", she said brightly, although I noticed she was breathing more heavily, "down you go, Rashani."

Rashani's bottom lip trembled a little. It looked like she'd rather be anywhere else than here at this precise moment in time. Nevertheless, she lowered her gaze, gave one heartfelt sigh, then, unbuckling her jeans, bent delicately over the table. Judith pulled down Rashani's jeans to reveal a tiny little pair of knickers that caused us all to raise our eyebrows, but not as much as we did what we saw when Judith's strong hands tugged the knickers down. Rashani's delicate brown bottom bore a faint tracery of reddish stripes, perhaps a dozen in total.

Even Claire took some notice, leaving off contemplating her own smarting arse.

"Jesus, Rashani, you kinky bitch!" she commented, fascinated. It was what we were all thinking, although I wouldn't have put it quite as crassly as Claire had.

"No, no," Rashani added hastily, from her rather undignified position. "It's my father. Whenever he feels I've done something unladylike I get a walloping with the cane!"

We all stared at Rashani's bottom, taking in this new information. Well, Judith had been right -- this certainly had made the game more interesting! Judith ran her hand over the striped bum and cast a practised eye over the marks as Rashani gasped and squirmed a little at the contact and, I observed, squeezed her thighs together. Hmm.

"Looks like it's been a few days," Judith mused, "I don't think we need hold back too much..."

Rashani made no reply, but seemed to slump lower onto the table at that. Judith raised the tawse.

She brought it down with a crack that made us all wince, and Rashani yelped piteously. But she didn't leap up or move, I noticed.

As Judith cracked the tawse down on Rashani's poor defenceless bottom I wondered about canes, and how bad that might be in comparison to the tawse. Either must be atrocious.

Judith finished her six. She hadn't held back, and Rashani's arse was scarlet. But she still hadn't moved, and after the first one hadn't cried out either, although I noticed when she got up that she was sniffling a little and rubbing her pitiable, smarting bottom.

Round two was far less evenly balanced. Claire was obviously distracted, shifting uncomfortably on her seat, while Rashani had been overtaken by a fierce concentration brought about by her smarting backside. Whatever the reason, all but one of the 26 penalties went Claire's way, with Rashani claiming the other. You should have heard Claire swear as the points piled up - the air was blue!

"You're all against me, you fucking bitches!" she shrieked. Judith was nonplussed.

"Stand up and get yourself over the table, Claire," she said, in her no-nonsense voice that we'd heard so many times at the office. Claire reluctantly obeyed.

Rashani took the tawse tentatively. "I've only been on the receiving end before," she said quietly, her dark eyes hooded.

"You'll soon get used to it," Judith assured her. "In fact, you might find you enjoy dishing it out." She winked. Rashani blinked and ran the leather once through her delicate fingers, then lifted it up and brought it down onto Claire's already red bottom. Claire sucked in air, but otherwise there was no reaction. Rashani repeated the action. Another small gasp.

"No, not from the elbow," Judith advised, "from the shoulder." Claire groaned at that.

Rashani began to strike again and again, at first somewhat lightly, but with increasing energy as she went on. Claire's gasps became cries, then finally shrieks as Rashani suddenly seemed like a woman possessed, lashing quickly, furiously, her long black hair whipping around her face, her teeth clenched and a terrible gleam in her dark eyes. Fortunately for Claire, Rashani's arm was not strong and the speed she was working at meant that she didn't lift the tawse up to its maximum potential height, but Claire was still wailing by the end of twenty-five strokes, while Rashani was so carried away that Judith had to physically step in and restrain her when the last one had been given.

Claire was still blubbering as Judith handed her the tawse. Now she got a chance to get one back on Rashani, but it was only the one. Rashani bent over quite calmly this time and dropped her jeans and knickers without a trace of her former false modesty. I am sure that I noted a faint sheen of moisture on her pussy lips as she bent over. Claire was still sobbing as she brought the tawse down and it didn't really sound like a hard one -- we were all coming to know the difference in sound now! Rashani stood up and resumed her place at the table without further comment.

The third hand was played to the accompaniment of Claire's quiet sobbing. She really wasn't concentrating at all, now, shifting about miserably on her chair, big tears running down mascara-smeared cheeks and landing on her blouse, and although Rashani collected the Ace of Hearts for one, the other 25 were again all in Claire's direction, to her total disbelief and dismay.

This time she had to be forcibly dragged across the table by Judith, wailing, "no, no, it's not fair, it's not fair, please...!"

Although I wasn't exactly enamoured of Claire, even I was starting to feel pity for her, but fortunately Judith seemed to feel the same way, and laid the twenty-five on quite gently, which was just as well, because by now Claire's fake-tan buttocks had suffered a real 'tanning' and looked like a pair of over-ripe tomatoes. I could see some bruises already starting to develop and it was clear that she wouldn't be sitting comfortably for several days to come.

Rashani had her single point again, and this time it was my turn to deliver it. Since she had got off so lightly last time that I thought I'd give her one that would wake her up a little. Once again she walked calmly to the table and dropped her jeans and knickers to her knees, waggling her pert little bum, the faint tracery of cane marks now joined by some red marks from the tawse. This time there was definitely a damp patch in her skimpy little knickers, and the unmistakeable smell of female arousal as she pulled them down. This evening was certainly becoming a revelation, and I began to wonder about whether Rashani's tale of a disciplinarian father was really true after all... who was she really getting to cane her?

I put my shoulder into the blow, twisting as I delivered it, which produced a great WHAP! as it landed. Rashani squeaked in pain. She stood bolt upright and gave me a look like thunder as she pulled up her knickers and jeans, and as she came back to the card table she had stuck a hand back down the seat of her jeans and was rubbing herself.

The fourth round was the last one, and I could sense a new mood, an unspoken consensus around the table. They wanted me, now. Me, Liz, the cool blonde who had just sat there and played a faultless game. Liz who thought herself better than the other three. The one with a degree, the one who earned more money, the one who hadn't had to lie over the table with three women staring as her dress was pulled up, and her knickers down, to be thrashed into tearful humiliation. The scoresheet currently read: Claire: 66, Rashani: 8, Judith: 4, Liz: 0. I could see it in the grim set of their faces - now it was my turn.

Well I was damned if I was going to just meekly accept that! I played the best game that I could, but while everyone was merciful to poor Claire, who escaped unharmed, and Judith somehow managed to escape with a single measly point, Rashani took eight, and the other 17 somehow found their way to me.

Claire went first. She had stopped crying now, although her face was still quite red and puffy, and she was shifting very uncomfortably in her chair. She took hold of the tawse and there was a look of steely determination in her eyes as Rashani wiggled her way back to the table, showing off now, peeling down her jeans and knickers with a flourish and pushing her bottom out saucily as if saying: 'come on then -- do your worst!'

Little strands of stickiness extended between her crotch and her damp knickers for a brief moment as she pulled them down. Rashani was definitely aroused, and I could feel myself going much the same way.