Samantha and Amanda, both attractive early-30 singletons, shared a rented house in a picturesque village on the south coast of England.
Hard-working professionals in the stressful world of marketing, they didn't get to spend a great deal of time in the home they adored.
But when they did, they made the most of the opportunity to forget about work and relax in their tranquil surroundings.
They particularly enjoyed sunbathing in the semi-secluded, spacious, lawned garden of their medium-sized, detached Georgian home.
But the arrival of a new next-door neighbour a few days earlier during that sweltering summer was posing a problem.
His name was Derek, he lived alone and he was roughly their age. That was all they knew about him.
They hadn't spoken to him yet but had gleaned this information from another neighbour, who had briefly met the new arrival.
The problem was that the girls were becoming the object of his unwanted attention.
Samantha had spotted him on two occasions staring at them from his attic window as they lazed in the garden, sun-protection lotion glistening on their bikini-clad bodies.
The second time he had had a large camera strapped around his neck.
On both occasions, Amanda had been dozing so hadn't noticed a thing, but Samantha convinced her friend that their new neighbour was a Peeping Tom.
"He just stood there for ages in the window. He didn't realise I was looking back at him because I was wearing shades. OK, I didn't actually see him take a picture but that camera - what I could see of it - looked like the real deal, very professional."
The women decided to confront their new neighbour and the following Saturday afternoon knocked on his front door.
Derek appeared shocked by his neighbours' accusation.
At first, he flatly denied spying on the girls but, after continued interrogation by
Samantha, he admitted: "Well, I suppose I might have caught a glimpse of you once or twice, and, after all, you are both gorgeous."
Derek had intended this as a compliment to placate the girls, and thought he had succeeded when Samantha replied sweetly: "I hope you don't have any plans for tonight?"
Derek smiled broadly and said: "No plans at all."
"Good," said Samantha. "We'll be back at eight o'clock."
With that, the girls returned to their house.
"What the hell was that all about, Sam?" Amanda asked her friend.
"I've got an idea to teach that creep a lesson he'll never forget," replied Samantha.
The pair returned to Derek's place at the appointed time, taking a large plastic bag
containing several items.
As Derek opened the door, his eyes lit up. Both women were wearing short, black, low-backed cocktail dresses and high-heels that accentuated the sensual curves of their tanned legs.
Samantha had done her auburn hair up in an intricate, interwoven style while Amanda's strawberry-blonde tresses cascaded naturally over her slender shoulders. They both looked stunning. Derek hardly gave the bag a second glance.
As he poured them all drinks in his dining room, Samantha said she needed to go to the toilet.
"Of course," said Derek, "turn left at the top of the stairs, then it's second door on
the left."
Samantha had no intention of using the bathroom. She quickly located Derek's bedroom and after a minute found what she was looking for in a big bedside cabinet.
Meanwhile, Amanda's job was to keep Derek distracted. But as she engaged him in small-talk, an uneasy feeling began to worm itself into her mind. It wasn't exactly déjà vu but it was its first cousin.
Derek broke her train of thought before it had time to pull out of the station.
"Look, I've got something important I need to tell you," he said.
It was at that point Samantha reappeared, in her right hand a digital single-lens reflex camera with a powerful telephoto-zoom.
She brandished the device's display window in Derek's face. The stored image she had selected showed the girls in their bikinis, stretched out on loungers on their lawn.
Derek's face flushed. "I ... I ... I always have my camera handy," he stammered.
"I'm a professional photographer. I can explain about this."
"Save your explanations for the police," cut in Samantha. She took a mobile phone out of her handbag, and added: "I'm going to call them right now."
"Please don't," pleaded Derek.
Samantha gave Derek a withering look. Camera in one hand, phone in the other, she seemed to be weighing up options.
Then she said: "Well, I think it's only fair we get to take some pictures of you, but we're going to have some fun first."
She issued Derek with an ultimatum. Either he agreed to accept his punishment immediately or he would be reported to the police as a 'perverted Peeping Tom'.
Derek knew he daren't risk police involvement, although he believed he had done nothing wrong, nothing criminal anyway.
Samantha didn't bother waiting for a reply. "I'd like to show you what we've brought with us," she said, emptying the contents of the plastic bag onto the dining room table.
A long, heavy, wooden-backed clothes brush; cat o' nine tails; a stout bamboo cane; and several lengthy birch twigs, tied together at the base (the girls had a birch tree in their garden).
"Can you guess what we're going to do with these?" Amanda asked Derek.
"Uh ... uh ... I don't know," Derek replied. But he was definitely getting the picture.
Just in case the situation needed clarification, Samantha announced: "We're going to give you a damn good flogging. You're going to take six of the best on your bare arse with each of these punishers."
She paused briefly, then added: "That's six strokes from each of us, by the way - a
total of 48. Extra lashes will be awarded for any insubordination."
Amanda chimed in: "And when we've done thrashing you, we'll use your own camera to take photos of your naked, battered backside. Then we'll print them out and stick them on lamp-posts all over the village, with a note saying 'Peeping Tom punished'."
Derek remained silent, the blood draining from his face.
Samantha continued: "We've decided to be lenient by letting you have a ten-minute break between each set of 12 strokes."
As far as Amanda was concerned, that was the end of the scenario the two of them had worked out. They were only going to scare Derek, not actually hurt him.
But Samantha - a veteran BDSM practitioner - had other ideas. She ordered Derek to strip to the waist, and took four lengths of red ribbon out of the bag,
Amanda was taken aback. "What are you doing, Sam?" she asked nervously.
"Teaching him a lesson," replied her friend, "just like we decided, remember? I'm
preparing him for his lashing."
"Come on, Sam," said Amanda, "we've already put the fear of God into him. That's enough, that's what we agreed."
"Well," replied Samantha, "I've decided it's nowhere near enough."
The two friends argued for five minutes, Derek looking on in growing trepidation during the exchanges.
"OK," Amanda said eventually, "I'll go along with it." Part of her really wanted to
sample the experience of punishing a man. She had enjoyed being spanked by several ex-boyfriends; now the boot was on the other foot.
As Derek took off his shirt, the girls tied a ribbon to the upper part of each of the dining room table legs.
They made Derek stand at one end of the table and pushed him flat down onto his stomach, stretching his arms and tying his wrists with two of the ribbons.
Samantha reached under him to undo his trousers while Amanda removed his trainers and socks. Then both women grabbed the waistband of his jeans and yanked them off, repeating the process with his boxer shorts.
"Right, almost time for your beating," said Samantha as she bound Derek's thighs to the table legs.
The girls agreed that Amanda should 'open the batting' so she positioned herself behind Derek, cat o' nine tails in hand. Samantha stood at the other end of the table, in front of their naked, tethered victim, ready to keep the count.
Amanda raised the whip to just below shoulder height and brought the leather thongs down across the centre of Derek's arse.
"One," called out Samantha, gleefully clapping her hands.