In the previous story involving the birthday swatting of the nude sales lady I had noted some scars on her back from previous thrashings, something all my new workmates had endured, but still awaited my thirty years if I stayed on at the job until my birthday in January. My husband on telling of the naked birthday and accompanying ritual swatting had suggested that I would not be a coward and would take my punishment. Although afraid I was not going to let him down and had resolved to endure whatever happened.
But there was the matter of the brand marks I had noted on the naked sales lady as she worked all day nude and was beaten at lunchtime.
Once again the kinky spare parts department person, Angela was to blame.
She had seen the Story of O and had been turned on by the scene where O is branded .Consequently she had asked the mechanics in the work shop to make a branding iron. She chose the shape of a star and in front of the whole workforce was branded. From that another tradition started. Every year on the anniversary of your start date you would be branded by the same iron. Both the office staff and the mechanics in the workshop. It had also been decided that the star brands would form the pattern of the constellation the seven sisters so seven would be the maximum you could have.
The workers were very loyal and presumably content with the kinky goings on and most had reached the seven.
I must have looked confused and perhaps disbelieving so Maureen the boss took off her top to show me her seven.
Now I was not only facing a flogging on my January birthday but also a branding when I completed my first year on the job in May.
When sober I was afraid but after a few drinks was on BDSM sites on the internet and getting turned on thinking that what I saw there might become real for me.
But before that there was the neighbourhood Halloween party.
The invitation was handed in by Maureen, my neighbour and boss and the wife of my husband Richards's boss.
It contained instructions as to dress code. Only pyjamas, bare feet. The male partner to wear the trousers and the lady the jacket. If the jacket was too large to be shortened so that it hung down only a quarter inch below her pubs.Only one button to be fastened. It advised that the postmistress ,a lady in her mid fifties but still could attract male eyes, was a skilled seamstress and would discretely do the alteration.
Since Richard is taller than me I nervously went to the post office, bought some stamps from the postmistress and then whispered "I am told you do alterations for parties."
She passed me a piece of paper with her address and said come at 7 pm. This I did. I was not alone and some other ladies were having alterations, most notably the vicar's wife.
The party was to be held at a country mansion and our neighbours and work colleagues appropriately dressed drove us there. The car park was gravel and we had to walk over it some thirty yards to reach the house. I once did a firewalk for charity and it was easier than hobbling on the painful gravel to the door.
The hostess , known to Maureen, was a stunning forty something not hiding much in her short pyjama jacket. I recognised her as a lawyer I had seen on tv discussing the outcome of a trial and married to a successful business man.
We were ushered to a large room where there must have been around twenty couples and all the ladies almost nude as I was in my shortened pyjama jacket. It was no surprise to see present the postmistress and her husband nor the vicar's wife but she was with a young man. I later learned he was her son and her husband and she were separated.
After an hour or so drinking and eating from a wonderful buffet we were taken to what was an indoor riding arena. The walk was about 100 yards and remembering this was Halloween. the end of October, and the night cold and our feet bare and virtually naked I was starting to shiver by the time we reached our destination.
In the middle of the arena was a table with boxes underneath and packs of cards and a timer on top. Bales of hay to be used as seats were around the perimeter.
The hostess produced a stack of cards and we each took one. Some had a blue dot, the others red.
The blues were then formed in a semi-circle and a number, 1,2, 3 and so on marked on there heads. I was blue, my husband Richard red.