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!"
