by Poppy
Editorial assistance by Devlin O’Neill

I must be clear that this is fiction, well, it happened in my head.

I have been burned.

My burns were not delivered by a card shark or by a flamethrower. I have been burned by the sun. It is only a little burn and it was not my fault. It is my skin’s fault because my skin is silly. It believes I am a vampire and thinks that I should stay indoors whenever there is enough daylight to see where I am walking. I do not think that a tiny bit of sun should turn anyone’s arms such an unnatural shade of crimson. It is the deepest red my skin can ever achieve. It matches my mood. I am furious.

I am furious because my burn stings horribly. I am furious because it is so unfair that I should have to lather up like a clown in white goo to go outside. I am furious because I would never have got burned if Dan were not staying with us.

Dan makes me laugh and smile, and flirts in the sweetest way. Dan was with me all morning and I did not want to look silly in front of him. I wanted to be like a normal girl. Dan was there the whole time and saw no problem at all with my using a factor of cream that you would have made me throw away as useless rubbish.

I am furious because you were right when you told me to use factor three million before you left this morning. I am furious because I was in a sulk with you for going away and so I may have used a lower factor than even I thought I needed just to make some point. I do not know quite what point. I am too angry to remember. I am just furious.

I have rubbed baby lotion all over my burns twice. I now smell good and am really quite slippery. I think of you trying to hold me like this and almost smile. I have done all I could to make it better. But it hurts so much I can’t stand it and I am furious all over again.

And now you are home and are horrified at what I have done to myself. I try to tell you it was not me, that it was the sun and my useless genetic makeup. I offer you the phone number of my parents. It is their fault, but you ignore my help without so much as a pause.

It is all so unfair and I am so grumpy I think my only option is to squeeze my eyes tight shut while I am scolded. I ignore as much as I can. The way you talk to me means I get to ignore about one word in twenty but that is fine by me.

I am irritated by my own carelessness but I can’t admit this to you. And I hate knowing that from now on you will check whether I actually use sun cream, so my very realistic aim of getting a tan becomes far less likely.

I feel two feet tall when you talk to me that way. Your being right makes everything twenty times worse but I swallow down my strop. I know that arguing with you is ill advised and can work an evil magic, the kind of magic where a telling off grows and mutates into something terrible and memorable, the kind of thing that hurts my bottom.

I wonder if Dan’s being here saved me from being spanked. I can’t believe you have not noticed my mood. I know your embarrassment factor is much, much lower than mine. You would not hesitate to tell me off when Dan is with us but it is less likely I think. I am all yours. I love this.

Dan knows about us. He knew you long before I did. You and he live in the same way. His girlfriends get much the same treatment I do. He spanks them and treats them with the same adoring bossiness you do. You are so alike in this way I wonder you are not brothers. You and I have talked about how you would not hesitate to spank me in front of him. This is the reason I am normally so good in Dan’s presence.

I know Dan is safe and honourable. I know you trust him, even with me. I am always only the tiniest bit of a brat around Dan. I know exactly what he will let me get away with and I can play him to my heart’s content. It is not like that with you. I can’t control you at all.

You have finished scolding me. I know I must continue to not let you see my rage. I take what I can get and walk away the moment you allow me to.

I head away from you and seek out Dan. He will cheer me up and say nice things to me. He has to be kind to me because that is what he does. I need to feel spoiled after being dressed down so thoroughly. I wish to be soothed and to have nice things said to me. I want to feel happy and not told off.

I find him in the den watching something appallingly dull on the TV. It may be some form of sport or a film with war or cowboys. I look but I see no pretty dresses and decide the TV is irrelevant and that I may interrupt with impunity. I bounce next to him on the sofa and smile hopefully. I like chatting to him. He will make me smile. Endlessly patient, he does just that, at least until he spies my burned arms.

Dan sighs in a way that is irritatingly reminiscent of you and asks if you have seen what I managed to do to myself. I tell him you have indeed seen and have told me all I need to hear on the subject. I thank him and request a change of subject. I want gossip on his latest girlfriend and not a rehash of a telling off that was unnecessary in the first place.

Dan looks at me with narrowed brown eyes, head slightly cocked. He listens like you listen. It feels like a preliminary hearing. Apparently the double jeopardy rule does not apply to me.

I sit, I listen, and I try to look like I am good. I don’t squirm like I do when you tell me off. But he talks and I feel resentful and embarrassed.

I like Dan to think well of me, I like him to not see all these parts of me. I want him to be nice to me. I want to get my own way with him, like I can’t with you. So I try hard to smile or be compliant or something that looks like compliance but I have just sat through being told off once and I am not prepared to be good twice in a row. I do not want to be told off by Dan at all. I can’t see why I should accept any of this. I feel stupid and search for a response other than anger. I can’t find one.

So the moment Dan starts to suggest that I need more after sun lotion I take my moment with both hands. I can glimpse freedom and start to scuttle away, but then it all gets too much for me. I have not yet made it off the sofa before his final sentence.

He tells me to put on some moisturiser. He does not ask, he does not suggest. He uses the tone of a man who expects to be obeyed. He tells me that I am “going to.” There is no request and no room for manoeuvre – just a bloody order.

Do you know the moment when it is all too much? I am cornered and fed up. How much is a girl supposed to take?

Although Dan is someone I adore and I think is wonderful and I would sooner cut off my own hair than hurt him, I just can’t take one more moment of not getting my own way. I do not respond politely as I might. I do not thank him for his concern. I do what feels most satisfying; I stand up and walk out. The devil then takes hold of me and I realise this is my one chance. I have been told off and dismissed. If you were to do that I would scuttle off and count myself lucky not to be tipped over your lap. But this is not you.

I mutter, just loud enough to be heard, the rudest thing I can think of. It feels so good to let it out, so satisfying to be able to express myself like that. As I leave, I hold the door behind me in both hands and slam it shut as hard as I can. It is childish, I know, but it helps me. I storm away feeling I have scrabbled back a bit of the self-respect I lost a few moments before. I won’t be spoken to like that. Dan will know he has upset me and he will say sorry.

I walk away faster than feels natural, dodging the guilt close on my heels.

It is but a moment before I see you standing a few feet away in the corridor. Your head is tilted to one side and you look at me as though I were a thing of particular interest, a specimen in a bell jar perhaps. I stop. The word “thwarted” bobs into my head and I try to ignore it. My mood of righteous indignation walks past me and leaves.

You still are silent. I decide to be silent too. It may help. I wonder how excellent your hearing is. It would not have to be very excellent to hear the door slam but the expletive I hissed out a moment earlier may well have escaped your notice. I am not the slightest bit sorry. I know you will know this. I just hope you will not find out what I am not sorry for.

I try the ancient ninja invisibility trick. I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t see you therefore you can’t see me. For some reason this does not work. I open my eyes and you still are looking at me. I flick my eyes towards the front door; it looks much more welcoming than you. You say just two words.

“Stay there.”

I used up all my bravery on the door slam and the passionate wording at my exit, so I stay where I am told to and watch you open the door I used so much energy to shut. In the silence of my hot whirring head I use every profanity I can think of while I strain to hear the conversation within. It is a problem with masculine voices that they sound a bit vague and threatening when heard through a wall. Silly as it may be I do not dare move even a step. I feel sick. My arms hurt, I remind myself, I am a victim in all this.

I worry about what you two are saying. I realise in my clenched brain that Dan is the one man in the world you would allow to spank me. You told me this once. I stand imagining my escape, wondering about asylum and where the nearest cathedral is and if they still grant sanctuary.

I also realise that if I had used those words to you … I can’t even think that sentence. It had not occurred to me you might be a bit irked if I used them in your house, to your friend. Dan will not tell you. He couldn’t. It was between him and me. It is none of your business.

The door opens, softly as if to mock my previous slam. I feel so, so stupid. I have one-sixth the strength of either of you. I realise that slamming the door made me look idiotic.

You don’t have to say anything. You look at me with raised brows and move to the side to make room for me to pass. I walk with silent steps. I am showing you that I can be good now. I can be quiet. Quiet isn’t something you ask of me and I offer it as testimony of my goodness.

I want a hug. My hand brushes your stomach as I walk by, my hand up, half reaching out. I stand at your side, close enough to feel my skirt rest on your leg. I want to hold your hand but content myself with standing just behind you. I feel the warmth of my arm burn reflect off your clothes. I wonder if I could claim brain fever as the cause of all this badness.

I can’t be mad with you because I want you to hide me. Like a shy child at a party I want to cling to you for comfort. I understand that you are part of what I should be hiding from, but this feels so unfamiliar I want it to be just you and me. I know I have been rude and bad tempered. I know that my rage scared me and made me do things I hate. I know I am desperately unhappy that I have been so unkind but I want you to make it better. I want you to hold me. I want you to make me safe.

But it is not just you and I. There are three of us. Dan is here and you two are united in this. I realise you know everything I have said and done. I realise, with slow and mounting horror, that you knew when you scolded me I needed to act like this. This is what you do. You let me behave as I must and only when I have done what I need to do you come and get me.

This is you coming to get me. You knew all along.

I can’t let Dan see me cower. I will not let him see me submit. I let go of my physical need for you and move one surreptitious step away. I raise my head and glare out of the window. I can’t stop myself; I need to do this too. I wonder if you know this like you know everything else. I want to reclaim self-respect. I want to be treated nicely. I want all of this silliness to stop. I catch Dan’s eyes and raise my eyebrows in a silent challenge.

You speak to me in a tone that makes me lower my eyes and want to crawl into your arms and away from you all at once. But I will not and I cannot crumble like that. I will not submit in front of Dan. Inside I am ashen but I cannot show this to you. I just can’t.

You remind me what you expect of me, how you love me and that I should hold myself accountable to the highest standards of behaviour. I think how wonderful if I could be able to hold myself accountable rather than suffer the ignominy of having you do it for me. I do not say this. You tell me how I let myself down and how I let you down. I cannot imagine how I find defiance after those words but I do. It is silent defiance and imperceptible to most men, but you are not them.

You allow me time for a response, a chance to tell you what happened. If this were only you and I then I would stammer and stutter out a true version of events, already repentant, already wanting forgiveness. I wish, I wish, I wish I could.

I can’t.

There are two roads in front of me, two choices. I always submit to you but this time I have to go all Robert Frost, don’t I?

“Well maybe,” I start and inject as much sarcasm into my voice as I can scrabble out, “I got a bit annoyed because you had just spoken to me and I listened to you and maybe,” getting into the spirit of it, “I was in pain and did not need to be told yet again what I already knew. I just wanted some sympathy.” I am warming to my theme now. I know how much you hate to see me in pain. “It really hurts, it really does.”

All intolerance is gone from my voice. I decide to appeal to your concern and let my pain stand for my defence.

“So I am sorry,” I try to sound it, I really do, “if I was a bit sharp but it hurt and it still does and I don’t know why you both have to be so mean about it.”

I gave it my best shot and I cannot believe I cannot sway it. I know I can’t sway you but it has to work on Dan. I do not want to look at you because I have no chance to change your mind, but Dan is a whole new ball game. Dan can change your mind for me. It will all work out.

Or not.

You don’t speak to me. You turn me around very gently, taking great care not to touch my burn. You place me in the corner, as though I belong there, as though this is normal, which it might be if it were just the two of us.

“You can do better than that, little girl. Why don’t you think about it?” You speak so softly in my ear that it sounds like a caress. I remember fifty times a day how much I love you and this is one of those times. “But you know better than to stand in the corner like that. Don’t you?”

My breathing gets deeper. You absolutely cannot mean this. My hands shake and I whisper to you that I just can’t. Your hands are a familiar touch when you help me. My skirt is unzipped and coaxed down my legs and I step out of it, like a child at bedtime. You lift my hands and place them on my head. You take my tee shirt and fold it up so I am left exposed and then, gently, terribly, you roll down my panties and leave them underneath my bottom, resting in a neat line at the tops of my thighs.

Anger leaves me. It betrays me because it can go when I am destined to stay here.

You talk together in relaxed voices, with no concern for my plight. You are not discussing me so much as talking as old friends, light banter flowing with shared references that amuse you both.

I flitter between relief and humiliation at being ignored. If I had the slightest ability to do so I would turn around and be enraged, but I embody futility.

There is the click and then the brief fizz of beer bottles opening. It sounds like any friends meeting on a warm day.

I pretend that I am not here. I don’t think about the total ignominy of this. I try not to visualise my yellow tee shirt over the pale white of my back and how my round bottom sticks out, speaking for me, telling of my horrible plight.

I try not to imagine the clash of my red arms against the sun-brightened blonde of my hair. I feel the line of my parting under my hands and remember with horror that I did my hair in pigtails this morning. It amuses you to see my hair like that and it was so hot outside and it seemed cute at the time. Now it mocks me, another sign of my forlorn position. The parting is neat and straight and reminds me of the line down the centre of my bottom as it faces the room.

I hear my name in murmured conversation once or twice but you do not sound like I want you to sound. You sound amused, relaxed, no rush and no concern. I want you to sound worried about me and to think you might be pushing me too far. I inwardly plead for you to come and get me and cover me and say sorry and kiss me.

You say my name and unbidden I respond. I respond in a secret way, signs of my desire, hidden between my clenched, closed legs. But you merely ask if I have anything to say to you both. Still facing the wall, I can only nod.

You tell me to turn around and lower my arms, and I turn on one heel. I keep still, grateful you positioned my panties to allow me a semblance of modesty at the front. You ask me what I want to say. I mumble an apology to you and to Dan. I am almost crying, not with repentance but with resentment.

When you do not ask me to extend my meagre apology, when you let it rest on the air, when you allow it to speak for itself, it is then I realise you are going to allow Dan to spank me.

I feel I am falling and I scrabble for a hold, for a way to understand this. I know that when all this is passed I will lie awake for hours feeling guilty about the way I spoke to Dan. I know he has become a receptacle for all of the rage I feel over not being able to control you. I know, and I hate this, I know that until Dan spanks me I will use him to hide from you.

I understand the two of you have discussed this, without asking me, without warning me. I understand how necessary it is and how much I have to lose and gain. I just want you to stride in and come and save me. I am yours, all yours.

All this is about your hands and your eyes and, my heart sinks when I realise, your decisions.

This is so horrible. The inequality between you and me is overwhelming. Now faced with the both of you I crumble into obedience, into submission, and you both know it.

Without a word you come to collect me. You know I cannot walk to Dan on my own and it occurs to neither of us that any of this need be expressed in words. I hold onto you as you walk to place me to his right as he sits on the sofa.

I do not know how to let go of you. You guide me forward over his knee. Your hands offer familiar and terrible comfort as you move my legs and arms to where you wish them to be. You leave me then, but I feel you close, a supervisory role. But you are with me so I am home still. This is all you; you are in charge of every moment.

Over an unfamiliar lap, a new kind of awkward, I wait for the lecture. My head hangs, I feel at odds and I don’t want to cling to him like I would to you. I worry about his hand on my bottom.

Dan tells me how he cares for me, how he considers me a friend and how he wants me to be safe and well and happy. He tells me how the language I used is not only beneath me but also how unkind it is to speak to a friend that way. I say nothing. I know he is right. I am furious and indignant that he feels he can say these things to me. If he thinks he can speak to me like this then I think it is acceptable to swear at him. I resolve to never, ever be open or friendly with him again. I almost hate him. But that thought makes me sad, so I ignore it.

He starts to spank and I do what I can to keep still, to keep my legs together, not to kick too much. His hand is flat against me, his arm holding me steady as I arch away from him. His pattern and his grip are unfamiliar, a stranger’s touch. I am aware of my nudity in a way that makes me try to pull inward and away from him. I feel his fingers forming a cup around the curve of my bottom, hear the noise of the impact and my shouting out the scene of my humiliation. I try to stay still, I try not to react. He does not spank with your strength or with the deep knowledge of me that you have. But the fact that he is not you makes it so much harder to take. He concentrates at the base of my cheeks and then, at your suggestion, peppers my thighs with sharp stinging swats that make me try to kick him away. It makes me cry out for him to stop. Again at your behest he redoubles his efforts. I do not know anymore where his hand strikes me; I cannot distinguish one slap from the next. I stop fighting it. I accept the pain.

He stops. His hand rests on my burning bottom. The lightest pressure is unbearable but I accept it. I do not say a word. I open my eyes and see tendrils of my hair hanging in front of me, damp with energy and heat. I listen to you talk to him and to his replies.

I breathe. Slowly I come back to myself. I remember how and why this happened. A tiny spark of indignation reignites. I say nothing but I feel the tension in my back when I try to peel away from Dan without moving, as though I can pull myself inward and leave my body where it is.

I wait, feigning patience. If I try to get my own way now I will lose. My bottom burns, my face is bright red with the shame, my arms are red with burn from the sun. My bottom is pink though, a deep pink. It is not red. I know this because I listened to you two discuss its colour.

I am allowed up. This permission is hard to take. I stand stiffly with compressed emotion. I don’t rub my bottom. You have never told me not to rub my bottom but I do not think I could cope with another order. I will stay still. I will seem to accept every word.

You tell Dan how you know I have not had enough. You notice all the signs I think you will never see; a tilt of my head, a concern with not being caught or rather a yearning not to do wrong when you can see it in my eyes as they evade yours, breathing a little more evenly than is normal while I strive for control over myself. You point out the tension in my hands, the way my shoulders push down and back. You notice it all.

I could spit with rage as you describe all of this to Dan. I am angry that you have known this all along. I am angry that you never told me so that I could drop the pretence or find new ways to hide my feelings. More than anything I am angry at your light tone. All the time I thought I was playing you, you knew everything. I feel stupid and small. You know so much and I am so safe with you. I want you. But I am enraged with you, such an impotent anger. I let this emotion roll over and smother the others.

I flash a glance at you, one where I do not hide how I feel. You catch it and offer it to Dan as one last piece of evidence. I have not said a word and still you have read me like a score sheet. Not one note escapes you.

You tell me to stand behind the sofa. I know the position I have to adopt. I concentrate on my breathing and keep even my eyes still in the hope that I might disappear somehow, but an image jars in my head. The vision of the sofa’s paleness clashing with the hot, dark, angry pink of my bottom will not leave me. I smile a furious, defensive smile when I realise how little camouflage I have. Just as you instruct I place myself over the back of the sofa, moving forward so my feet dangle off the floor and I lean forward, resting my arms on the seat. I am unbalanced, steadied only by your firm hand on my back.

You take your time.

Dan moves to the side so he can see what you do. He does not move to see me, he moves to see what happens to me. I grip the cushion tightly and stare at my fingers when I think the word “punishment.” That word is almost impossible to bear.

Before you lift your hand I know you have won. The position I am in, the way I obeyed you without question, the way the whole room stills for you, waits for your next move, tells me you have won.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a familiar movement of your arm and hear the slide of leather through denim and I know you are taking your belt off. It is not just that you have won; now I am sorry. You don’t need to do one thing more. I tell you this and I mean it, I mean every word.

You comment on what I say, not to me but to Dan. I want you to take me more seriously than this. I want you to listen to me, to let what I say alter your course. I feel so powerless, so helpless, so observed but without one tiny element of control. You see every part of me, you understand me so completely you can ignore what I say. You know my lies where I do not.

You push my back down and position my bottom to your liking. From the first stroke of the belt I realise how much my bum already hurts. Your belt flicks burning ribbons onto my already swollen cheeks. I bite my lip and tense all the muscles in my back and my stomach. I will not call out. I will not ask you to stop. I will not … and I forget the rest.

I kick out, my legs splay in an acknowledgement of my total lack of dignity and I cry out “No.” I make sounds, I buck and writhe. I push my arms and try to move away, to move towards you. I exist only to make this stop. I beg you to stop.

You stop. For one moment I feel my heart lurch and I think you stopped because I asked. You say nothing. You wait for me to compose myself. I do not know whether to curse you or myself as I do just as you wish. I settle. I wait. I submit.

I do not know how many more times you cross my cheeks with leather. I do not know because I have given up now. I acquiesce to every line, every stripe. The pain is total, more than I think I can bear but your actions tell me you think this is what I must have. I accept it because you think it. I pant with the pain and with the ease into submission. I make noise but it is for me, not a message to you.

At some point you stop. It takes several seconds for me to realise this. You ask me if I have anything to say to Dan. I thought this could not get any worse but that is always when you are at your best.

I look up and stutter out an apology. I mean it. He smiles at me and I smile back at the end. I feel ashamed of being mean. I have no rage for the first time in hours. I understand now, finally, why you did this.

You saw me lash out at myself, you saw my horror when I spoke unkindly to a man I adore. You saw my rage, my unhappiness and my confusion. You came to fetch me. Every act was a loving act.

I have no idea about anything else in the world. I am not what I thought I am. I am what you say I am. And you say I am loved.

I am loved.

Would you like another?