The Boy in Black Trunks (F/m and F/f)

This one is the fifth in a series of Connie Wilmer/Andy Styles stories and predates 'The Past is Always Present' and 'The Boston Landlady' pieces. For those who like a mixture, both the boy and his girl get their bare bottoms whacked. Andy gets most which, as in real life, is how it should be. I sell this one on the Lulu website so think yourselves lucky that you are getting it for free. But you deserve it. As do Andy Styles and Sally Frend when Mrs Wilmer connects her awesome strap to their bare behinds. Alfred Roy.

The girl stared in silence. The two figures in the distance were engaged in a private ritual she had no right to observe. Three times the boy had come out of the sea, three times he had performed a somersault, and three times he had pulled a face and laughed. And three times he had approached the woman’s chair and, with sudden and unexpected seriousness, nodded his head and listened as she talked. The girl could not hear what the woman was saying but each time it had the same effect. The boy, no more than sixteen or seventeen, listened intently and then turned and ran back into the sea. His slim and pale body, clad only in tight fitting tiny black trunks, disappeared into the water and prepared again to conduct the small and strange exercise with which the watching girl was becoming so familiar and so involved. They were the only three people on that part of the Lyme Regis beach that cold late spring morning, the boy doing the puzzling exercise, the woman and the girl. And the latter was now absorbing the ritual almost as intently as the sitting woman who clearly controlled it. She had no right to intrude but she could not help being intrigued.

 

‘Hi.’

‘Hello.’

Andy Styles looked up from his script and registered the intense young face of the girl who was standing over him in the cafe.

‘What were you doing? This morning?’

‘Who?’

‘You and that woman.’

‘Were you the girl watching us?’

‘I was.’

‘Mrs Wilmer said somebody was.’

‘The woman in the chair?’

‘Yes. But she doesn’t mind an audience.’

‘And I did keep quiet.’

‘Yes.’

‘So what were you doing? Call me nosey but I was intrigued. And I love being intrigued especially by someone so serious.’

Andy studied the face again and decided it was a nice fresh face framed in short black hair and when it smiled, as it did now in anticipation of an answer, it was almost beautiful. His pulse quickened slightly as he composed a suitable response.

‘We were rehearsing.’

‘Really. I’m impressed. Mind if I join you?’

As she said this last point the girl had already sat down in the only available chair and to refuse her request would seem churlish. Besides, Andy Styles had already decided in their brief exchanges that her company would be most welcome.

‘I’m Sally by the way. Sally Frend. Or Sally Pally to some. I am on holiday with my mother.’

‘Hello Sally.’

‘Sally Pally.’

‘Hello Sally Pally.’

Andy Styles blushed at this early and uneasy familiarity.

‘And you?’

‘Andy. Andy Styles.’

‘Not the Andy Styles.’

The girl had proclaimed an elongated ‘the’ and getting no response other than a puzzled look, burst out laughing.

‘Sorry. Poor joke. Only you said you were rehearsing so I presume you are an actor.’

‘In a way.’

‘What were you doing?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘So why don’t I get myself a coffee and you can tell me? Or better still you can get one for me.’

Andy Styles thought for a moment. He had half an hour to kill before the next rehearsal and, suddenly, the company seemed more important than the script. So he bought Sally Pally a coffee and over the next half an hour he told her all about the woman sitting in the chair on the beach. By the end of the thirty minutes Miss Sally Frend was convinced she knew everything about Mrs Connie Wilmer and Andy Styles was convinced he was falling in love again. Both could not have been more wrong.

Connie Wilmer finished marking her script and lit her seventh cigarette of the morning. Andy had done well today and, when they filmed, the difficult sequence when he emerged from the sea should now hit the right artistic notes. It was not easy for a sixteen year old to convey, simultaneously, the variety of emotions required in that brief sequence. In one encapsulating moment he was to display both the bravura of youthful exuberance and realise the seeds of incipient sexual longing. When he somersaulted in front of his schoolgirl friend he should become aware of his virtual nakedness. As he landed he must, to the sounds of her appreciative clapping, realise that he desired her. The actress playing the girl was fine but Andy, until this morning, had not signalled any truthful feelings. It was either all child or all man. But this morning he had finally got it right. In front of his director he had performed the small scene over and over again. Maybe it was Connie Wilmer’s insistent goading that did it. Or maybe it was the even smaller and tighter black swimming trunks she insisted he wear. Or maybe it was the distant, anonymous, girl in the red top watching from afar. But whatever the reason, Andy Styles had finally intertwined the childish joy and sexual yearning that the scene required. Two crucial minutes of Connie Wilmer’s latest project could, finally, be packaged and stored away.

 

‘What’s it called?’

‘It doesn’t have a title. Yet.’

Andy Styles paused, wondering if he had said too much. He had been telling Sally about Mrs Wilmer’s latest project and, between a number of uneasy pauses, she had told him a little about herself. She went to a private school in Somerset, funded by her absent father, and her mother was treating her to an end of term break. Lyme Regis wasn’t exactly skiing in Switzerland but it suited her mother’s business plans. Sally was easily bored and this morning had created an interesting diversion. As she had done for most of the previous thirty minutes she plied the nervously shy boy with a bewildering array of probing questions.

‘Then it should have. I can think of one.’

The girl paused and affectionately laughed at Andy Styles’ puzzled expression.

‘You could call it ‘The Black Trunks’.’

Andy blushed.

‘That scene is only a small bit of the film. Most of it takes place in a hotel.’

‘Pity.’

Andy blushed again and changed the subject.

‘It’s based on a script by a friend of Mrs Wilmer’s. She comes up with some weird titles.’

‘And is this one weird?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, go on.’

‘Breathless.’

‘Yuk.’

‘Exactly. The girl is asthmatic. Mrs Wilmer said she doesn’t care if she is in a coma on a life support machine, she is not having that title.’

Andy paused.

‘She usually gets her way.’

‘I can believe that. Even from where I was standing she seems a very strong and assertive woman. She reminds me of my headmistress.’

Andy blushed again and this time his blushes would have rivalled the woollen red top of his delightful, and disconcerting, companion.

 

Sally Frend, or Sally Pally as she insisted that her new found seaside companion should call her, could have had no idea why his last embarrassment discomforted him more than the others she had engendered. Yes, he was shy and uncomfortable whereas she, with her sparky personality and disconcerting maturity, reminded him of another girl who captured his heart. But his discomfort went deeper than mere teenage infatuation. Andy Styles may have reddened when his new and captivating acquaintance alluded to his youthful actorly charm or to his fetching and skimpy black swimming trunks but he squirmed even more when she strayed on to the territory of his Mrs Wilmer. She may have seen the woman in the chair as a strong and determined woman but she could not have known, why should she, that to Andy Styles she was much more than that. Connie Wilmer was a stage, and now film, director with considerable skills. That information Andy readily exchanged. But she was also a consummate disciplinarian and this new acquaintance, suddenly so important to his brief stay in Lyme Regis, could have no idea that when circumstances required it the woman watching and correcting the somersaulting dance on the beach was not averse to correction of  a stranger kind. Connie Wilmer had a strap and that strap, and other implements, had occasionally connected with the backside of Andy Styles. It was an essential element of a gifted director and her young protégée. Andy Styles had learned to accept it, even welcome it, but he was not about to offer such information to his new friend. It was enough that she knew that he was making a film with this woman. All else was beyond explanation. When Sally Frend left the café and he went off to the current location for filming he hoped, and trusted, that she would never find out more than he had already imparted.

 

The confused emotions of Andy Styles’ teenage mind were not the thoughts which occupied Connie Wilmer that morning. Filming ‘Breathless’, the awful title of her friend Paula Michaels’ latest piece, was raising more problems than it solved. She may have had a satisfactory morning on the beach with the talented but inexperienced Andy but the wider world of cinematography was rich with unresolved, and seemingly irresolvable, problems. The main hotel location was proving difficult over an extension, the cameraman was concerned about the quality of the natural light, and the local council were proving more and more intransigent over funding. It may be an Arts Festival film but teenage nudity, even the brief and diffused style envisaged, was causing much gnashing of self important teeth. And on top of all this the young actress playing the asthmatic sexual siren to Andy Style’s awkward desire was refusing to take her knickers off in a crucial scene. She wasn’t against going nude, apparently, but needed a motivation and Connie Wilmer had yet to provide one. And to cap it all her boy, after pleasing her this morning, now seemed aimless and distracted. Lunch with Paula Michaels may not totally dispense her ill humour but, hopefully, it would relieve it. She picked up the phone and dialled her friend’s hotel.

 

‘Perhaps you should apply a little of your Andy methods with her, Connie.’

‘I would if I thought it would do any good.’

‘It might.’

‘I doubt it Paula. She is more likely to go screaming off to Equity. Our actress madam is well aware of her rights.’

Paula Michaels took a last mouthful of her ’death by chocolate’ dessert and, ruefully, pushed her plate away. She and Connie Wilmer had discussed the many problems of their joint venture but none, including a satisfactory title for the film, had been totally resolved. They could not do anything about the lighting quality, the cameraman’s problem was how they left it, and funding for art ventures was always fraught with difficulties. But Paula was convinced she could work her powers on the location extension if only because, as Connie Wilmer reminded her, this Lyme Regis hotel was her suggestion. This just left the minor, but vexing, question of a young stubborn actress and her equally stubborn knickers. Paula Michaels delicately wiped the excesses of the chocolate from her wide mouth and considered again this particular problem.

‘Have you tried appealing to her sense of artistic integrity?’

‘It is her artistic integrity, as you put it, which is causing her problems.’

‘Why?’

‘She does not believe that her character would, unprompted, go naked for a midnight swim with the boy. The annoying thing is that part of me agrees with her.’

‘Then cut the scene.’

‘I can’t. It follows on nicely from the scene on the beach when the two somersault into sexual awakening. I have a solution but it will need careful handling. Especially after today.’

Paula Michaels waited for Connie Wilmer to continue but her pensive friend required some prompting.

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘What about today?’

‘Andy. After a good rehearsal on the beach this morning, just me and him, he was hopeless when we came to film it. I think something, or more to the point, someone has distracted him,’

‘He is only sixteen,’

‘Seventeen. Last month.’

‘Still young enough, Connie. If you know what I mean.’

Paula Michaels’s eyes flashed mischievously. Her prurient but oblique interest in unconventional directorial methods with the young always amused her friend. Connie Wilmer took out her cigarette packet and smiled.

‘I know exactly what you mean Paula but smacking a boy’s bottom, even Andy’s, is hardly a cure for love.’

She rose and studied Paula carefully.

‘Let’s go into the garden where we can talk more freely’

‘And smoke.’

‘And smoke.’

It was as they were making their way to the garden for tea and cigarettes that Paula Michaels enquired on the solution Mrs Wilmer had in mind for a stubborn actress who knew her Equity rights.

 

Sally Frend decided that this morning had been the best morning of her life so far. Five days into her Lyme Regis stay with her mother and she had met the most interesting boy in the world. He was very young for his age, and for an actor painfully shy, and her sixteen years and ten months seemed a lot older than his seventeen and a bit. Never had she met a boy who blushed so much and at the slightest provocation. But he had done so much in his short life. While she had been stuck in a private school she intensely disliked he had been performing on the stage in a variety of roles. And not just on the local stage. He had done the Edinburgh Festival and, heavens, two weeks in a small theatre in London. And not walk on. Big parts. And now he was making a film. In Lyme Regis. A talented boy. And delicious, as the cavorting on the beach in skimpy black trunks had shown. He had such a smooth, slim body and such a lovely little bum. Sally Frend decided she wanted to eat him but before she ate him she would let him, no, insist, that he rob her of her virginity. There had to be a first time for every girl and Sally Frend, Sally Pally to some, decided that Andy Styles would be the boy to rob her. Willingly. The only cloud on the horizon was the enigmatic Mrs Wilmer. Andy Styles clearly revered her, loved her, admired her and, strangely, feared her. She was his director, his mentor, his mother, his guiding hand. He twitched at her name and blushed at her memory. He sang her praises and was in awe of her personality. And when due to meet her for some morning filming he literally ran to her presence. He never even promised to see Sally Pally again. But she knew they would meet again. And when she saw him wandering aimlessly around the shops at lunchtime she was more than ready for their second meeting. Sally Frend moved in to say hello to Andy Styles but, this time, she was well armed with all the nuances of his complex character. Or she thought she was.

 

‘Do you think she will agree?’

Paula Michaels poured herself a second cup of tea and declined her friend’s offer of a second cigarette. ‘One at lunchtime and three in the evening’ was her concession to society’s abiding and fashionable sin. Sitting in the pleasant garden after an even more pleasant lunch many of their amplified problems seemed to diminish. The light promised to be good for the afternoon filming and Connie Wilmer had just outlined a possible solution to a stubborn young actresses motivational problems.

‘I have no idea but I intend to give it a try.’

‘She goes to the beach at midnight with the boy and he yanks off her swimming costume?’

‘Put like that Paula it would not work, and you know it. It needs some careful direction.’

‘Naturally.’

‘I shall work on it tonight.’

‘And the boy?’

‘I haven’t decided. In the current scene he sees her naked and is prompted to do likewise. In the revised idea he makes the running. I need to find a way of making it seem natural.’

Connie Wilmer stubbed out her dying cigarette and immediately reached for another.

‘You smoke too much, Connie.’

‘And you eat too much cake, Paula. We both need our props.’

At the mention of cake Paula Michaels picked up the one remaining, silver wrapped, biscuit she had been resisting for the last ten minutes.

‘You may have problems. Andy is very shy and hesitant.’

‘The boy in the film is very shy and hesitant.’

‘Have you told him about the change?’

‘Not yet. But I am confident he will be able to do whatever I say. You forget, Paula, he is a very good actor.’

‘But very young.’

Paula paused, carefully choosing what she was going to say next.

‘Has he caused you any problems since you have been in Lyme Regis?’

Connie smiled.

‘Not yet. And no, before you ask, I have not had any cause to give him a spanking.’

‘Really, Connie, I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort.’

‘Yes you were. You love the idea of me taking him over my knee. Or even worse. What you forget is that if I do, when I do, I do it for his own good. Not for my pleasure.’

Paula Michael’s wasn’t convinced but she refrained from saying so. Whatever Connie’s motives, they seemed to work with Andy Styles. And with a couple of other youngsters she had worked with. She had a pressing engagement herself that afternoon but had not, yet, totally exhausted this line of conversation.

‘So when did you last whack his bottom?’

‘I have no idea. Probably after he crashed a car last year and nearly lost me a show. I certainly haven’t done it since.’

‘Much as you might be tempted?’

Connie Wilmer rose and put on the jacket she had placed on an empty chair.

‘Time to go, Paula. I do not know about you but I have some filming to do. Especially while this light is so good.’

Paula Michaels also rose and promised to come to the set in a couple of days when Connie would be ready with her revised nude scene. In the meantime she would flash her obvious charms at the hotel proprietor and the Arts Council. Andy and the stubborn actress she would leave to her friend. In her customary gushing and extravagant manner she adjusted her old fashioned cloche hat, gathered a variety of bags that she always seemed to have in tow, and breezed out of the tea garden into the town. It only occurred to Connie Wilmer after she had gone that as Miss Paula Michaels was staying at this hotel, carrying so much baggage seemed a trifle unnecessary.

 

Around the time that Connie Wilmer and her author friend were discussing the problems of ‘Breathless’ young Andy Styles was meeting his Sally Pally for the second time. They were sitting on the beach, only yards from where she first saw him doing his puzzling manoeuvres, sharing a large bottle of non alcoholic liquid and an enormous ham and tomato baguette. On the walk to the beach Andy had learned that the girl was in Lyme Regis for another four days and, before returning to school, was to spend a week with her father in Scotland. A dreary house in a dreary town with his dreary girlfriend was how she put it.

‘So, how long are you in Lyme Regis for?’

‘Another week, maybe ten days. Then we come back in the summer to film the rest.’

‘You and Mrs Wilmer?’

‘Yes.’

Sally Frend paused, choosing her next question carefully.

‘She’s very important to you isn’t she?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘There is no suppose about it, Master Styles. You go very serious whenever she is mentioned. You are doing it now.’

‘She has been very good to me. She is putting me through drama school next year.’

‘You might not need it if ‘Breathless’ sweeps the board at the festivals.’

Sally laughed and then her mood changed and mirrored Andy’s serious expression.

‘I would love to go to drama school but mother wouldn’t hear of it.’

‘Why not?’

‘She wants me to go to a proper university and get a proper degree. What do your parents say?’

‘My mum is in awe of Mrs Wilmer and I haven’t seen my dad for years.’

Andy rose from his sitting position and wandered over to a bin to dispose of their lunch packaging. It was more the gesture of a boy who did not want to discuss his family rather than a piece of incipient citizenship. Or that is how Sally saw it. She gave him a moment and then joined him and they walked along the beach together.

‘So how was this morning’s filming?’

‘We’ve got to do it again this afternoon.’

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t do it right.’

‘But you were so good when you were practising. In your little black trunks.’

She giggled and ruffled his hair and Andy blushed.

‘And Mrs Wilmer was very cross.’

‘Quite right too.’

‘Not just with me, with the cameraman as well. He said the light was all wrong.’

‘Poor Mrs Wilmer.’

‘She was in a very bad mood when she left.’

‘She should have put you both over her knee and given you a good spanking.

As Sally said this she laughed out loud and ran towards the sea.

‘She looks the type.’

The roaring of the waves meant that the girl could not hear what Andy said in response and the distance she had covered meant that she could not see his face. By the time he arrived at her side the words were gone and his face had recovered its composure. But he still had the aura of a shy, little boy lost, which appealed to her from the moment she first saw him. On impulse she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a big, friendly, kiss on his cheek.

‘Sally Pally wants to see you every day she is in Lyme Regis. Can you manage it?’

‘I think so. Most of tomorrow is free after ten o’clock.’

‘Then meet me at the café at eleven. I want to know all about this afternoon’s filming.’

And with that she gave him a gentler peck on his cheek and, hand in hand, they made their way back into the town.

 

Sally Frend did not hear what Andy Styles had said about Mrs Wilmer because he had whispered it. Even against the background of the waves he could not risk his response being heard. But for some reason amplifying it, even quietly, released an inner tension. ‘She is’ was all he said. ‘She is the type who spanks’ was what he meant. And even in whispering it he had, secretly, sent out a glimpse of the relationship he had with a mature woman he revered to a young girl who had captivated him. But he could never explain it, even to himself. How could he tell this young girl that the black trunks she so admired, and teased him about, had almost got him a spanking from Mrs Wilmer in Lyme Regis. Only a week or so before. How could he tell her that seven days ago he had refused to wear the smaller size that Mrs Wilmer had bought as a replacement for a larger pair she considered unsatisfactory. Irritated with the difficulties of the young actress playing the asthmatic heroine she was not prepared to accept similar antics from her own protégée. In no uncertain terms she took him aside and quietly told him that if he refused to wear them she would take him to her lodgings, make him put them on, and then give him the spanking that both he and the girl deserved. And, make no mistake she said, at some point during the spanking I will take the trunks down. So he had put them on and they had filmed in them. The chemistry didn’t work but Mrs Wilmer, in some respects, was a patient director and moved on to easier scenes. But throughout the remainder of the day Andy was restless. And he and Mrs Wilmer knew why.

 

‘The boy was nervous. It was she who had suggested this midnight swim. It was she who had come to his room just before twelve and dragged him from his bed. The cloudless and moonlit night was merely an excuse. She had told him to go to bed wearing only the black trunks and, submissive and shy, he had done as he was told. If thunderous and menacing clouds, rich in inky black, had rolled in from the sea she would still have come. And he would have followed her down to the beach in the pouring rain. But the sea was calm and the sky was clear and still. And in the moonlight he absorbed the clear outline of her young and slim body. Covered in the small orange top and the clinging pants, a mocking black against the light of the moon, he suddenly desired her. Just as he had when performing somersaults that afternoon. She removed her top, laughing as she did so, and her young and firm flesh released itself to his view. He approached her and, in that moonlight, at her silent bidding he peeled off the small orange pants. He gently removed them from her feet and she stood naked before him. He sighed and, as he did so, she placed her fingers in the waist of his small black trunks and slowly pulled them down his own slim, and youthful, body. For a moment all was still. And then he ran into the sea, hiding his nakedness, and cried.’

 

It should all work so well, it could all work so well. But the young actress playing the part read Connie Wilmer’s revised script and refused to do it. So Connie Wilmer sacked her and the ‘Breathless’ script of Paula Michaels’ latest project lay, like the small black and silky trunks, discarded on a Lyme Regis beach. The following day, desperate for a replacement, Mrs Wilmer was on the phone to a few theatrical friends. Of the five names proffered only two were suitable and neither was available that week. It was Paula Michaels, back from a heavy afternoon’s shopping in Exeter, who came up with a solution. But it was a solution that was to come at some cost to Master Andy Styles.

 

‘Sally. Sally who?’

‘Sally Frend. Andy’s new pal.’

‘So he has met someone.’

‘I saw them yesterday afternoon. Had a very long chat. Occurred to me then that the replacement you were looking for might be under your nose.’

Connie flushed, seemingly in anger at something, as Paula Michaels continued.

‘A very interesting girl, and very good for Andy. Being with her seemed to have improved his mood enormously.’

‘Yesterday morning was fraught with the problems of that stupid actress. Can this girl act?’

‘Oh I think so. She seemed very keen, providing she can get round her mother.’

Connie Wilmer, still flushing, produced an inevitable cigarette and lit it impatiently.

‘You asked her?’

‘No of course not, but Andy did.’

‘Andy?’

‘Yes. Apparently they have been rehearsing his scenes in the café.’

‘And he is impressed?’

Connie Wilmer said this with an uncharacteristic show of scorn which surprised her friend.

‘You seem displeased Connie. I thought it might solve you a problem.’

Connie Wilmer did not respond. She rose and poured them both a second gin and tonic. Paula’s hotel bar was very pleasant but the privacy of her own rented cottage was more to her taste. And here they could speak freely.

‘I am annoyed with Andy. Where did you see them?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It does to me Paula. He was supposed to do some filming yesterday afternoon and he didn’t turn up.’

‘Oh.’

‘And now I know why. I told him that sacking that madam did not affect the film. In comparison with his, her part was small. But he didn’t turn up.’

She handed Paula her drink and downed a significant portion of her own.

‘Where did you see them?’

‘They were queuing outside the cinema. I was on my way to the taxi rank when I bumped into them.’

‘So some films are important to Andy.’

Connie Wilmer sat down and made a feeble attempt to suppress her irritation.

‘I think you are a little unfair Connie. The row with the girl yesterday morning must have been most unpleasant.’

For a moment Connie Wilmer said nothing as she considered the implications of everything Paula had told her. They had lost half a day due to having to redo Andy’s somersaulting scene. That and the problem with the actress and a pernickety cameraman required a copious amount of rescheduling. That rescheduling needed Andy Styles back at the hotel location at three o’clock. All this she related to Paula with increasing irritation.

‘I told him as he was dashing off. Presumably to meet this girl.’

‘I am sorry Connie, I didn’t know. If I had I would have mentioned it.’

‘Andy knew.’

‘Yes.’

Both of them sat silent for a few moments considering the situation. Finally Paula Michaels, running her finger around the glass rim of an over generous gin and tonic, raised both a small smile and a tentative question.

‘What are you going to do, Connie?’

She paused.

‘Will you….you know….?’

‘Probably. And I shall audition the girl. But it will be on your recommendation, not Andy’s.’

Connie Wilmer rose to pour herself another gin and tonic.

‘Not for me Connie, I need to be off.’

‘Does she know about the nude scene?’

‘Yes, and it doesn’t seem to bother her. Public school types have so few inhibitions.’

‘Let us hope her mother feels the same. Assuming she passes the audition.’

‘Oh I think she will, Connie. They already have a special chemistry.’

Paula Michaels rose in readiness to leave. Her friend already seemed more relaxed than earlier. Maybe it was the gin and tonics, maybe it was the prospect of solving her actress problem. Or just maybe it was the equally pleasant prospect of dealing with Master Styles. Paula Michaels did not know and, until all was resolved, had no desire for more information. She was content that her friend and project partner appeared to be dispensing with an alien ill humour justifiably engendered by a number of difficulties. It was as Paula put on her expensive and inappropriate coat to make her departure that Connie Wilmer fired off an unexpected question.

‘What was the film?’

‘What film?’

‘The film they were queuing to see. What was it called?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

She paused, perplexed at the request for such an inconsequential detail.

‘Oh yes I have. There was a big poster for it near the taxi rank.’

‘Well?’

Paula Michaels suddenly burst out laughing.

‘Brief Encounter. It was called Brief Encounter, Connie. Now why is that making me laugh?’

And on that final and happier note the two friends, one laden with her inevitable and expensive purchases, parted.

 

Sally Frend could not believe her luck. Not only had she met the most interesting and dishy boy in Lyme Regis but meeting him had opened a door to some wonderful possibilities. If she could impress this Mrs Wilmer, the awesome Mrs Wilmer that Andy nervously introduced her to that morning in the café, she would be in a film and her dreary end of term break with her mother would suddenly break out into an exciting adventure. Her mother was, predictably, unconcerned about either ‘Breathless’ as a project or nudity as a problem. And she was also prepared to stay in Lyme Regis for a few extra days to see it through. ‘Art is art’ was all she said and Sally, unquestioning of her mother’s motives but suspecting a hidden agenda, was delighted. So much so that she felt the need to tell Mrs Wilmer this good news straight away. Her audition, probably a mere formality given that Mrs Wilmer seemed quite taken with her, was not until the following day. But given that Mrs Wilmer seemed relieved that she may be the answer to her difficulties, Sally Pally Frend saw no problem in popping into her cottage to give her the good news now. So she made her way to the small group of Tudor style cottages where this formidable, but fascinating, woman was temporarily living. She excitedly knocked and was surprised, and delighted, when the bashful Andy Styles opened the door. His face was a bright red and his demeanour was more nervous than usual, but he expressed little surprise and bid her come in. Before either of them could speak, a voice from a distant room told him to tell her to wait. Half an hour later she left, and if in some respects it was the most stressfully uplifting thirty minutes of her young life it was also the most uncomfortable. Sally Frend was cast there and then as the asthmatic girl but an indefinable atmosphere had left her less than ecstatic. She was just about to make her way home when she heard a commanding shout from Mrs Wilmer.

 

‘An unfortunate interruption Andy, but it doesn’t change anything. Go back into your room; I shall be with you in a minute.’

‘Please Mrs Wilmer, I said I was sorry.’

‘Sorry is not good enough. Andy. You failed me the other day and you have been warned.’

‘Please Mrs Wilmer.’

‘Andy. Do as you are told.’

Connie Wilmer had raised her voice in anger but her subsequent quiet control convinced Andy that protesting any further would be to little avail.

‘This has been a long time coming.’

Andy Styles shrugged his shoulders and slowly made his way to his own room. The small leather chair that Connie Wilmer had placed in the centre would still be there, waiting for him. He had been about to lower his jeans and bend over it when the doorbell had rung. The minor stay of execution, unknowingly brought by his Sally Pally, was over. Mrs Wilmer had told him, in no uncertain terms, that when they got back to her cottage he would be thrashed. For going to the pictures when he should be rehearsing and for offering a crucial part in her film to a girl she had never met. And with no authority. All his pleading was wasted on a formidable woman who had decided that it was high time that her protégée had his backside strapped. He stood by the chair and waited. He did not wait long.

‘Lower your jeans, Andy. They make too thick a protection for your backside. I intend this to be a sharp lesson.’

Andy Styles did as he was told. After all he had done so before and, much as he revered this woman, he knew that in this mood any argument was futile. As he fumbled on the buttons of his jeans and pulled them down to his knees, Connie Wilmer picked up the thick and menacing strap she had been forced to lay aside by their unexpected interruption.

‘Right down Andy, and bend over the chair.’

Andy Styles pushed his jeans further down his legs. He had already started to cry. In this situation he often did so. He knew what she was going to do, he knew it would be extremely painful, and he knew it was impossible to resist. He would cry before she did it, he would cry while she did it, and he would remain crying long after she had finished. His only solace was that, when it was over, he would have no regrets and the bond between them would be as strong as ever. He bent over the back of the chair and, protected only by his small cotton briefs, waited for her to do her worst.

‘Hold tight Andy. This is going to hurt and you know it is deserved. It is long overdue.’

And saying this Connie Wilmer brought down the formidable strap across the small, brief covered, behind of her favourite, irritating, boy. She slashed the thick leather over both his small upturned cheeks at least fifteen times. And the more he howled and pleaded the harder she hit. And when she stopped she made him stand and lower the briefs to his knees and bend over again. And the small rose pinked buttocks, almost flame red against the stark white of his legs and thighs, received another fifteen strokes of that painful strap. By the end the boy’s naked backside was scarlet, his tears were in full flow, and Connie Wilmer was well satisfied. Andy Styles had been well and truly, and deservedly, thrashed. His behind was still throbbing when he retired to an early bed later in the evening. But in spite of his discomfort he knew his Mrs Wilmer was right. He had deserved what he had got. It was always so.

 

The following days filming almost made up for the frustrations of a difficult week. The hotel had agreed to an extension at only a nominal additional cost, the cameraman was pleased with the quality of the light, and Andy’s scenes with Sally Frend’s asthmatic girl had a depth and intensity previously missing. In deference to it being Sally’s first day and Andy’s undoubtedly sore and, possibly, red bottom, Connie Wilmer had deferred the crucial nude scenes until Sunday evening. Nudity for youngsters was sensitive enough without one of the teenage actors, even in diffused light, fearful of eloquent disciplinary marks across his behind. Unsurprisingly, Andy Styles was fired with sensitivity and generosity in his scenes with Sally. Connie Wilmer knew, she always knew, that concentrating his mind took a certain, special, expertise. When she went for a late lunch with Paula Michaels and Andy and Sally sailed off to their favourite café, all involved in the filming were very happy. It was the mischievous and enquiring Sally who brought matters back to an uncomfortable reality.

‘I saw.’

‘What?’

‘You. You and Mrs Wilmer.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Andy shifted uncomfortably on the café seat and mindlessly stirred his drink.

‘I think you do Andy.’

‘So?’

‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I suspected as much.’

Andy Styles ceased his aimless stirring and stared at his young friend.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Just something about you both. And yesterday afternoon was, well weird.’

‘I had made her cross.’

‘And me coming round didn’t help. But it got me the part.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I saw your bottom far sooner than I expected to.’

Andy blushed as Sally laughed.

‘A very nice bottom, Master Styles. Even if it was getting the strap.’

Andy looked at her. He couldn’t quite work out whether she was teasing him, sympathising with him, or gloating. Or a mixture of all three. But she was clearly interested.

‘So you saw it all?’

‘All the gory details. Through the break in the curtains.’

Sally paused and smiled again.

‘What a pity you weren’t wearing the black swimming trunks. I would have loved to have seen those taken down.’

As she made the last remark Andy rose angrily and went to the café counter. Sally quickly followed and insisted on paying for the chocolate cake he had arbitrarily purchased. They walked back to their table in silence.

‘Sorry Andy. I shouldn’t tease. It couldn’t have been very nice for you.’

‘Sally.’

‘Sally Pally. Please?’

‘Sally. Sally Pally. Please understand that Mrs Wilmer does that sort of thing. It’s…it’s a part of her. If I deserve it she wallops me. Better than being sacked. I don’t mind…I used to but….’

‘You have learned to like it?’

‘I have learned to get used to it. And yesterday, yesterday, I deserved what she did. I just wish you hadn’t seen it.’

‘I’m nosey, remember. That’s how we met.’

Sally paused and reached out to take Andy Styles’ hand.

‘And I do not like you any the less for it. In fact I think I like you even more.’

Andy Styles gave her a weak smile, a smile rich with teenage confusions, and the more mature Sally Frend squeezed his hand even tighter. And when they parted, some ten minutes later, she was convinced that he felt the same about her.

 

The filming on the Sunday exceeded even the most fervent expectations of Connie Wilmer. The sea was relatively calm and the sky was clear. In three days they had re-filmed the scenes involving the asthmatic girl and now Sally Frend’s most important piece of acting was about to be put to the test. Seven people gathered on a lonely stretch of the Lyme Regis beach shortly before midnight. The cameraman and the soundman set up the required technical gear and Connie and her two young actors waited their cue. The night was cold and both Sally, clad only in the skimpy two piece orange costume, and Andy shivered. Paula Michaels sensibly fetched two blankets from the hotel and offered them to the youngsters. Andy eagerly covered his almost nude body, the swimming trunks seeming even smaller than usual, as Sally’s mother fussed over her daughter. Connie Wilmer was a little irritated at the presence of the latter for a delicate bit of filming but realised that the content made it inevitable. For al her supposed indifference Mrs Frend intended, as she put it, to be around when her daughter displayed her birthday suit.

They had to film the sensitive scene four times before Connie Wilmer was satisfied. On the first occasion the two youngsters shivered too much when the blankets were taken off and it was decided that hot soup and a delay to acclimatise was necessary. On the second occasion it went very well until Sally Frend smirked as Andy ran into the sea. But after an attempt that failed because Andy couldn’t seamlessly remove the girl’s costume bottom, the fourth take worked beautifully. The three most important and delicate minutes of the film was completed and all could retire to bed.

 

‘I must say Connie, he has the most gorgeous little bottom.’

‘They both have nice bodies. The scene wouldn’t work if they didn’t.’

‘So cute. Do you know it is the first time I have seen it. Unlike you.’

‘We didn’t come here to talk about Andy’s bottom, Paula.’

They were sitting in the bar of Paula’s hotel on the penultimate day of filming. Paula Michaels was back to London the next morning, for negotiations was how she put it, but Connie wasn’t moving out of her cottage till the weekend.

‘We have a lot to discuss, Paula. Not least the title of the film.’

‘I thought you had decided on one?’

‘I have, but I need your agreement. After all, you wrote ‘Breathless’.’

‘I still quite like that one.’

‘I don’t. And I need your approval of the one I have in mind. It effects tomorrow’s filming.’

‘Oh?’

‘I want to do a couple of solitary scenes with Andy in the swimming trunks. As a leitmotiv.’

‘The Boy in Black Trunks?’

‘Exactly. The Boy in the Black Trunks. That is what I intend to call the film. With your approval.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘The film is much more about the boy than the girl, Paula. And it is a better title.’

Paula Michaels wasn’t convinced but she had learnt a long time ago that arguing with Connie Wilmer was usually futile. She quickly agreed that Connie should do as she wished and they moved on to other matters regarding the settling of bills and the success, or otherwise, of sponsorship. It was on the latter point, over a second drink before they parted, that Paula delivered a small piece of interesting news.

‘Sally Frend’s mother is sending us a small cheque. Not that small actually. She said she wanted to help with the film’s promotion.’

‘That’s wonderful, Paula. When did you find that out?’

‘I saw them this morning in the town and they had clearly been discussing it at length. Mrs Frend was clearly impressed with your direction.’

‘I should hope so too, I almost caught pneumonia on Sunday.’

‘She said you handled the scene very sensitively and is convinced it will wow them at the film festival. Her words, not mine.’

Paula powdered her nose and cheeks as she let Connie Wilmer absorb the possibilities of this good bit of news.

‘I also learnt something else that may interest you.’

‘Oh?’

‘I asked Sally why she had giggled when you were redoing the scene on Sunday. It had all gone so well until then. Her mother had popped into one of the shops so I took the opportunity.’

‘Go on.’

‘She said that she couldn’t help it. Andy turned to run into the sea and she saw faint strap marks on his bottom. It just made her laugh.’

‘The young laugh at the most silly things, Paula.’

‘All I can say is that she must have very good eyesight.’

‘Or she knew. Has that not occurred to you Paula?’

Paula Michaels stared at her friend.

‘You mean you strapped him, as I thought you might, and Andy told her?’

‘Oh I don’t think Andy told her. Or not directly. But she definitely knew.’

And on that enigmatic comment, which Connie Wilmer refused to elaborate, the two friends went their separate ways. It was only as she arrived at her cottage that Connie Wilmer realised that her meeting with Paula Michaels had both started and ended with discussions regarding the cute and naked rear of Master Andy Styles.

 

Connie Wilmer had expressed no surprise at Paula’s revelations regarding young Sally. She had expressed no surprise because the young girl had been to see her that afternoon and, whilst waiting for her friend in the hotel bar, she had been assessing both the strange conversation and its possible implications. The girl was full of guilt. She adored Andy and was excited by the filming experiences but some of his introspective personality was beginning to rub off on her more outgoing nature. He had got into trouble because of her, she had pushed him into going to the pictures, and she had teased him about his punishment. She knew Mrs Wilmer had taken a strap to him, she had seen it all. She had a headmistress whose voice had a similar tone and whose eyes had a similar look when angry. And on more than one occasion that headmistress had told a distraught girl that she was sorry that corporal punishment had been abolished at her school. But such rules didn’t apply in private. And being convinced that something was going to happen she had gone round the back of the cottage and seen more than she should have seen. Through a gap in the side of the curtains. And though it upset her she understood. And on the basis that she was partly to blame, and because she wanted her relationship with Andy to be on the same footing, and because she had never had such an experience even when deserved, she wanted Mrs Wilmer to do the same to her. Sally Frend, Sally Pally to Andy, wanted to tell him, show him, that she also had been spanked. All this came out in a fervent rush as she stood in Connie Wilmer’s cottage. And Connie Wilmer listened and then sent her away. If she decided to meet her strange request then she would call her before the weekend. Before Paula Michaels arrived for their evening chat and drinks, Connie Wilmer had made her decision.

 

‘What time are you going?’

‘Three o’clock.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yes. She rang me at home this morning. Told me to come to her cottage at three o’clock on Thursday. To continue our discussion.’

Andy listened intently. He had been involved in some last minute filming and had been looking forward to seeing Sally again. They had not met since the sensitive Sunday filming and he was eager to continue their relationship. What she said when they met on the Lyme Regis cob disturbed him.

‘You didn’t need to tell her, Sally. I said it was no big deal.’

‘It is to me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I care about you.’

She squeezed his hand and gave him a big smile.

‘I think you are the first boy I have ever loved, Andy Styles. And to really know you I need to know your Mrs Wilmer.’

Andy blushed. He had never known a girl who was so mature, so intense and so fun loving. All at the same time. Not for the first time in her company he was lost for words.

‘Why?’

‘For an actor, Master Styles, you are surprisingly monosyllabic. How was this morning?’

The slight change of subject was to Andy’s liking and he visibly relaxed.

‘Cold. We spent two hours filming lots of long shots. But Mrs Wilmer seemed happy.’

‘I should think so, with you in your skimpy black trunks. I wish I could have been there.’

Andy steeled himself not to blush again.

‘How did you know that?’

‘My mother told me. Mrs Wilmer has been most forthcoming since the promise of a cheque. New film title means more of you in your swimming pants.’

She paused and looked at him intently.

‘I loved Sunday, Andy. I loved us both being naked and going into the sea. And I can’t wait until we can be like that again. Alone. And Andy?’

He raised his eyes and looked at her with an intensity that almost matched her own.

‘If we are it will be even better. Especially if, when it happens, I have been through what you have been through.’

She paused, waiting for a response which didn’t come.

‘With your Mrs Wilmer.’

‘I know what you mean, Sally.

‘Sally Pally, please.’

‘I know what you mean, Sally Pally. And I think you are mad. Mrs Wilmer does not play games and if you get what you want she will make you cry.’

‘But it will end a perfect week. Now come on, the rest of our day is free, let’s go and see a jolly film.’

And with that she took his hand and, with a superficial confidence, they made their way into the town. Five hours they spent in each others company and for five hours they enjoyed the closeness and camaraderie. Andy was happy not to dwell on Mrs Wilmer and Sally felt that nothing more needed to be said. They would just indulge in each other. It was only when they parted that Sally, briefly, allowed her thoughts to stray on to the possibilities of Thursday. And when she did her stomach took an unfamiliar, perplexing, lurch of fear and anticipation.

 

Sally Frend stood in front of Mrs Wilmer and waited for the latter to speak. She had been in the cottage for about ten minutes and other than alluding to the dreary weather and the problems of packing Mrs Wilmer had said little. She had taken Sally’s raincoat and complimented her on her outfit, an expensive pale blue cashmere top and simple navy skirt, and offered her a drink.

‘I am having a small sherry but, as your mother would not approve, I can only offer you lemonade or cola.’

Sally opted for the lemonade and as Mrs Wilmer went off to get it she absorbed, for the second time, the details of the cottage living room. A couple of storage boxes and a large suitcase did not rob the room of the cosy seaside feel she had gathered from her first visit. Tasteful furniture and ornaments indicated class both from the unknown owner and the person renting it. As she looked around Sally registered that the curtains to the one small latticed window and been tightly drawn. The cottage was naturally dark, especially on such a dull day, and both the ceiling and discreet walls lights were lit. The curtains being drawn may not be significant but Sally was convinced that it was and her stomach repeated the sensations of both yesterday and during her earlier preparations. It was as she was thinking that her decision to wear nothing other than a simple pair of cotton pants under her skirt was the right one that Mrs Wilmer came back into the room.

‘Here you are Sally, drink that and then tell me more about yourself.’

Connie Wilmer sat down in the one comfortable armchair and picked up her sherry from the small side table.

‘Or more to the point tell me again why I should punish you.’

‘I told you on Tuesday, Mrs Wilmer.’

Connie smiled and took a small sip of her sherry.

‘You may have changed your mind since then. The emotions of the young are confusingly volatile.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I admit I am a bit scared at the prospect but…’

‘You want to experience what Andy has experienced.’

‘Yes and…..’

Sally Frend hesitated again, unsure of how to continue. This woman was so formidable and calm. Dressed in her smart woollen two piece suit she looked every inch like the girl’s headmistress. In interviews with her the usually composed and confident Sally often became tongue tied and awkward. The outcome may be radically different but this unequal dialogue had a similar ring.

‘And what, Sally?’

‘I deserve it. I often have but no one has ever, not even when I was very young.’

‘Go on.’

‘And meeting Andy, and then you, and getting him into trouble.’

She paused, searching for the right words.

‘He adores you. And so do I……it just seems right Mrs Wilmer.’

Connie Wilmer rose and turned away from the girl to pour herself another sherry. She did not drink but left it on the cabinet and remained, silently, with her back to the girl. No longer being scrutinised allowed Sally a little more verbal courage.

‘I want to be spanked Mrs Wilmer. I deserve it. And I want to be spanked by you. And…and when it’s over, when you have…..I think I shall know Andy a little better. Does that make sense?’

Connie Wilmer turned and smiled.

‘Perfectly Sally. The things one does, or wants to do for love.’

She returned to her comfortable chair and sat down again, all the while not taking her eyes off the still standing and dutiful girl.

‘There was another girl, not unlike you but less mature, who had similar feelings about Andy and teased him about my dealings with him.’

‘I don’t tease him, Mrs Wilmer.’

‘Oh I think you do, but no matter. I did eventually punish her, more than once, because she deserved it. And she always cried. Copiously.’

‘I know, Andy told me.’

‘And pleaded to be let off. Do you really want to go through that?’

‘Yes.’

‘I shall use the strap. The same strap I used on Andy. I do not play games Sally.’

Sally stiffened and felt her stomach lurch again.

‘Yes.’

‘And I shall apply the strap to you in the same way I did it to Andy.’

‘Yes, Mrs Wilmer.’

‘You understand what that means?’

‘Yes. Yes I do.’

Connie Wilmer sighed and rose from her chair.

‘Very well Sally, wait here. I shall be back in a moment.’

The girl meekly, and nervously, waited as Mrs Wilmer left the room and her mind filled with the picture she had seen through the curtains the previous week. She turned her head to check that the curtains here were tightly drawn and when she turned back Connie Wilmer was standing in the doorway. In her right hand she held the same, two foot long, brown  leather strap which Sally had witnessed landing on Andy’s rump thirty times. And he had cried and howled. When she left the cottage, over an hour later, Sally Frend painfully knew why.

 

It should have been such a lovely afternoon that Saturday, the day before Andy Styles was due to go back home with Mrs Wilmer. Their time in Lyme Regis was up and, other than a couple of poster shots to advertise the film, Andy was free that day to do as he pleased. And what he desired more than anything else in the world was to spend a last few hours with Sally. He knew what had happened on the Thursday afternoon, Sally gave him all the graphic details the previous day, and he didn’t care. He didn’t understand either but he knew that the bond between them was growing stronger. When she took him back to the hotel room she shared with her mother he neither resisted nor enquired. Although nervous, he was as excited for her as she was for him. He didn’t know if he could do what she wanted but he knew that he was willing to try. And he might have done. He might have lost his virginity and Sally might have given up hers. As they stood naked in the hotel bedroom gently exploring each other Sally dropped all teasing about Mrs Wilmer’s strap and what it did to little bottoms, and a breathless intensity took its place. She looked at Andy’s growing desire and gently, almost expertly, took it in her hand. He sighed and closed his eyes. The touch was heaven. Or at least it was until the hotel door suddenly opened and Mrs Frend, laden with bags which would have done Paula Michaels proud, stepped into the room and spoilt what should have been a lovely Saturday afternoon.

 

Connie Wilmer replaced the phone and lit herself a much needed cigarette. It had been a long and difficult phone call and an unexpected one. Mrs Frend had called her regarding the state she had found her daughter and Andy in and, after the initial shock, had sent Andy packing. She wasn’t surprised, her daughter had a predatory streak, even at sixteen and Andy was very immature for his age. But wise to Sally and how taken she was with him she had made him promise that he would respect her and not allow her to take advantage. And that meant not going to their hotel. Andy had blushed his usual crimson colour and mumbled agreement. All this had come out in an almost one-sided conversation but it was what followed that caused Connie Wilmer the greatest concern.

‘On top of all that Mrs Wilmer, I caught sight of the state of my daughter’s bottom. She wouldn’t tell me who did it but, before he left, Andy did. I think I am entitled to an explanation Mrs Wilmer, and if I do not get a satisfactory one I am afraid I shall stop my cheque.’

Mrs Frend had paused in her retelling of the afternoon’s events which allowed Connie Wilmer to absorb the details, regain her composure, and consider the implications of a very delicate situation. She took a deep breath and responded.

‘I did take a strap to your daughter’s backside, Mrs Frend. She asked me to do so.’

‘If she asked you to cut her throat would you oblige her? I do not think that is any answer, Mrs Wilmer.’

‘There is no similarity. I would not cut your throat Mrs Frend, however much you may beg me, but I might, in certain circumstances, agree to slap your face. The bottom is merely a different part of a person’s anatomy.’

‘Nevertheless, it is an assault.’

‘Wished for by the party who received it. And any after effects are purely temporary. I am sure, in the situation you described, you also saw Andy’s bottom. I think you will agree he has no obvious evidence of the strapping I gave him last week.’

Mrs Frend did not respond for a moment and Connie waited.

‘You mean you strap Andy?’

‘I do so occasionally. When he needs it, deserves it. Your daughter clearly approves. She is a very complex young lady.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘Then I suggest you talk to your daughter. If you stop the cheque I shall, of course, be disappointed but I have no regrets over my actions. In fact in view of what you have told me I think they were more than justified.’

Shortly after that little exchange Connie Wilmer replaced the receiver convinced that not only was Mrs Frend wavering in regard to the stopping of the cheque but that she had also received a small illumination into her daughters’ developing personality. It had been a difficult phone conversation and, for a number of reasons, she was annoyed with her protégée but if Thursday’s little scene needed any justification then the indignant Mrs Frend had just supplied it.

 

‘I think you should remove your skirt, Sally. It will get in the way. And your shoes.’

‘Yes, Mrs Wilmer.’

Having responded, Sally did as she was instructed, and then stared at the woman holding the strap. Connie Wilmer was not displeased with what she now saw. The young girl was standing before her in only her small cashmere top and simple, white cotton, pants of the school variety. Plain socks completed the picture. She had clearly come prepared.

‘I want you to bend over the back of the armchair. Hold on to the sides. I shall deal with you in the same way I dealt with Andy, as you saw through the curtains, in other words thirty strokes. The first fifteen will be on your school pants. The second fifteen will be on your bare behind.’

Connie Wilmer paused awaiting a response. The only response that came was Sally moving to the back of the chair and bending over it.

‘You can still leave if you want to.’

‘Please strap me Mrs Wilmer. Please. I am ready.’

And she was. The small backside, not much larger than Andy’s, was raised in the air awaiting Mrs Wilmer’s feared strap. And encased in the tight cotton pants it was not unpleasing. Connie Wilmer made no secret of the fact that she enjoyed what she did, providing it had a justification, and Sally Frend presented a rear that did not offend the eye. Connie Wilmer raise the strap and, seconds later, Sally Frend experienced the sensation she had long been waiting to feel.

The strap swooped and connected with the small buttocks and the fiery pain, so familiar to many, sent out its message to the backside of Sally Frend. And that was only the first. There were fourteen more to come like this. Sally Frend squirmed and closed her eyes. The pain in her bottom was intense, the fire almost unbearable, and all her senses seemed to be concentrated in the burning line which the strap had left. But she did not get up, she did not cry or plead, and she held on to the arms of the chair as Mrs Wilmer repeated the action. And if, when the fifteenth stroke fell across her pert bottom, she was both snuffling and wriggling she still rose as bid and pushed her cotton pants down to her knees.

Now she knew what Andy felt and feared. Now there was no turning back. Sally sensed her total exposure and bent over the armchair again. Her stinging bottom, now naked and trembling, contrasted in its vulnerability with the pants which now clung around her knees. The two sensations vied with each other for attention. But only the upturned bottom could win. Especially when Connie Wilmer lashed into it with the sixteenth, and hardest, stroke of the strap. And that stroke was the hardest because Connie Wilmer was equally becoming fired by this chastisement. The revealing of the small, boyish, cheeks reminded her of Andy and the howls which followed, and they now came, only spurred her to greater intensity. This girl not only wanted a thrashing but she also deserved one. And Connie Wilmer was in no doubt it was a girl. When Andy Styles writhed and wriggled under her strap she was conscious of his dangling boyhood. And care was always taken to make sure that such delicate extensions were never struck. With a girl you need have no such inhibitions. The bottom may be thankfully boyish but the charms were all, uncomplicated, girl. You could whack it with abandon. And Connie Wilmer did. She lashed Sally Frend’s small and naked cheeks with venom that surprised her and when the last stroke hit into the young flesh she was barely conscious that the girl receiving it had both exhausted her tears and long since cried for forgiveness. Connie Wilmer laid aside the strap and studied the inflamed bottom of the unmoving girl. Sally remained bent over the armchair, pants around her knees, and did not rise until told that it was all over. Her thrashing, her strapping, had finished. And yes, it had been harder than Andy’s so her tears were understandable. Sally Frend rose, wiped her eyes, and pulled up her small pants. She then rubbed her bottom vigorously and, still with tears, asked Mrs Wilmer if she could use the bathroom. Before she left, forty five minutes after she had bent over the armchair, she had showered, drank a welcoming cup of tea and told Mrs Wilmer that she loved her. Alone, Connie Wilmer poured herself another sherry and contemplated, not for the first time, the complex and fascinating world of corrective discipline.

 

Andy shivered as the cold morning wind cut into his flesh. He had been standing on the cliff, close to the sea, for over twenty minutes and still the fussy and irritable photographer had yet to take a picture. Ten minutes, Mrs Wilmer, had said. Ten minutes, and a few shots of you in your swimming pants for the poster. But everywhere he had stood either the light or the perspective or the background was wrong. And if the photographer was happy, Mrs Wilmer wasn’t. After half an hour of shivering in the skimpy black trunks they had finally agreed on a location. But still the camera had yet to click into action. Andy reckoned he would freeze to death before they finished. And they were due to leave the cottage and head back home by two o’clock. Finally Mrs Wilmer and the photographer agreed on the light, the perspective, and the background and with Andy’s diminishing co-operation the shots for the poster were done. The photographer reckoned that of the twenty or so he took there would be half a dozen strong possibilities. Mrs Wilmer hoped so. This morning’s exercise had taken longer than expected and it was an impatient film director and a grumpy young actor, the latter eagerly putting on his thick jogging suit, who got into the back of the photographer’s car.

‘There is no need to change Andy. We have some unfinished business before driving back home.’

‘I’m cold.’

Arriving at the cottage, Andy had flopped into the armchair, his grumpy humour not improved by Mrs Wilmer’s own irritability on the journey back and the current harshness in her voice.

‘I think what I have in mind will soon warm you up. Stand up and take off that outfit.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do as you are told Andy. I think you know what is coming to you.’

‘But I haven’t done anything. I can’t help it if I was freezing.’

Connie Wilmer crossed over to the armchair and pulled Andy Styles to his feet.

‘This is nothing to do with this morning Andy. This is unfinished business from yesterday.’

Andy cowered under the strength of Mrs Wilmer’s feeling. He knew that yesterday with Sally would get him into trouble but when nothing was said when he returned to the cottage he thought that he had escaped.

‘I should have thrashed you last night, but I was so angry it would not have been right.’

‘It was Sally’s fault.’

‘It was not Sally’s fault that you broke a promise to her mother, it was not Sally’s fault that you told her mother I had strapped her, and it definitely was not Sally’s fault that, as a consequence, I may have lost a valuable sponsorship.’

Andy hung his young head under such an onslaught and the tears, so easily induced, started to swell.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’

Connie Wilmer softened her voice. Annoyed as she was with him she now knew that Andy was ready to take his punishment and she always preferred controlled calm when she chastised.

‘You will be more than sorry, Andy. Go into your bedroom and take off your jogging suit. I will join you in a moment.’

Andy turned away from her, his head still bowed and the tears beginning to flow, and made his way to his room.

‘Andy. You can keep the swimming trunks on. For now.’

 

Andy did keep the black trunks on, but only for the first part of his overdue thrashing. When Connie Wilmer entered his room carrying the fearful strap he was standing, shivering, beside his bed clad only in the small item which had almost defined his personality for their two weeks in Lyme Regis. But it was not the cold which made him shiver; it was what he knew Mrs Wilmer was going to do. He had been in this situation many times before, only last week he had felt her worst, but it never made it any easier. He begged her not to smack him, he pleaded with her to let him off, and he promised her that he would never let her down again. And all the while he continued to cry. He had not the strength of his young Sally Pally. Her whacking was her first but until the pain cut deep into her bare flesh she shed hardly a tear, issued hardly a whimper. Andy Styles, a boy familiar with pain to his bottom, had no such resolve. Perhaps it was the knowing which made it better to weep in advance. But weep he did, and when Connie Wilmer placed his pillows on the centre of his bed and told him to lie over them he wept even more. And as his raised bottom met the first strike of her strap he wept and cried as no other boy ever did. And he had good reason to. Connie Wilmer loved this boy but she did not spare him. And twenty five times the uncompromising strap lashed across his welcoming bottom. It lashed the bottom of her crying boy in the small black trunks and never, not even once, relented.

‘Take them down, Andy.’

‘Please Mrs Wilmer, please, no more.’

‘Pull your trunks down, Andy. Or do I have to do it for you.’

‘Please Mrs Wilmer. Not on the bare. Not on my bare bottom. Not today.’

‘You should have thought of that yesterday. Now take your pants down.’

Andy Styles howled and placed his hands on his backside. But the manner suggested more an intention to protect it than comply with the instructions. Connie Wilmer was used to such antics and roughly put her fingers in the waist of Andy’s trunks and harshly pulled them down his thighs. The boy sobbed as his bottom, red and sore from her exertions, was released to Connie Wilmer’s gaze. For a fleeting moment he remembered, as the trunks came down, the perverse wish of his beloved Sally Pally and the sobs and howls increased.

‘Please, please, not my bare bum.’

In spite of her increasing annoyance at his defiance, Connie Wilmer could not but help admire the view revealed. As often as she had seen it, as familiar as she was to it, Andy’s naked bottom always made her catch a breath. The two small, perfectly round and smooth cheeks, were the epitome of boyhood. They, literally, cried out for chastisement. The high curve of each buttock contrasted joyously with the pale and silky legs and thighs. And when she thrashed them, as she did now, his writhing and wriggling and turning would reveal all his boyish charms.

Andy Styles receive another twenty five strokes of the strap across his naked backside before Mrs Wilmer relented. Each one cut across the centre of his young bottom and each one made him cry out in agony. After the first five or six Mrs Wilmer pulled the black trunks completely off and continued the thrashing on the now totally naked boy. As he turned first one way and then the other she could not avoid seeing all that the young Andy had to offer.

‘I have no wish to see your penis Andy, or anything other than your bottom. If you do not stay in place I will tie you down. And if I do I shall double the number of strokes. So keep your bottom up.’

As she said this Connie Wilmer lashed the strap across the burning red backside for probably the fortieth time. Andy stretched his arms to the head of his bed, raised his bottom and howled in agony. He howled for forgiveness, he howled for relief, and he howled for Sally Pally. Fortunately for him, and the exhausted Connie Wilmer, he remained decently presented for the final ten strokes across a behind that was now rich red from a strapping both would long remember. The black trunks had been taken down and the bottom had been justifiably thrashed. Mrs Frend, Sally Pally and Paula Michaels would all, for their different reasons, approve and enjoy. A boy with such knowledge could only cry and endure.  It was a tired and silent couple who, two hours later, made the long drive home.

 

Paula Michaels emerged from her shower and, dried and refreshed, covered herself with a luxuriously comfortable towelling robe. She entered the living room of her equally luxurious flat and poured herself and her evening companion a well earned glass of champagne. They had just returned from a long day of sorting out final details for their joint venture and tiredness and satisfaction combined in equal proportions.

‘I think we have earned this, Connie. Cheers.’

She handed Connie Wilmer the bubbling glass of expensive liquid and sat down in the chair opposite. Connie Wilmer downed a good third of her drink and, lighting a cigarette, leaned back in her own chair and smiled contentedly.

‘Yes. I think we can say it has been worthwhile. The film is quite good.’

‘The feedback from the preview is amazing, Connie, it’s more than quite good. Next year we will take the film festivals by storm.’

Connie Wilmer smiled. Her friend’s triumphant exclamations were in sharp contrast to the demeanour she had shown over the last two weeks. Hardly a day or an evening had gone by without Paula Michaels’ frantic phone calls about one problem or another. But all that was now behind them. They could look forward to public airings of the film even if the director did not totally share the confidence of the writer.

‘Friends, Paula, friends and interested parties. The real test will be when Andy and Sally display their wares to a more hard faced audience in Edinburgh.’

Paula Michaels rose from her chair and helped herself to one of Connie’s cigarettes. It was a small and deliciously sinful pleasure for Paula, enjoyed all the more because she rarely bought any. Mention of their two young stars drew her attention away from the glow of the afternoon’s private preview.

‘I was surprised they weren’t there today.’

‘I didn’t want them, Paula.’

‘So you said.’

‘We needed objective feedback. Andy and Sally attending would have been inhibiting. They can see it in Edinburgh.’

‘You are a hard woman Connie.’

This comment from Paula produced in her an association of ideas.

‘Have you seen them recently?’

‘I see Andy quite often, I haven’t seen Sally. No reason why I should.’

‘Neither have I.’

 Paula Michaels drew on her cigarette and sat down again.

 ‘But I have seen her mother,’

‘Oh?’

We met for lunch in London. A few days after you finished in Lyme Regis.’

‘You never told me.’

‘I didn’t want to bother you. It was about her cheque.’

‘It went through.’

‘Only because I persuaded her not to stop it.’

‘Oh?’

Connie Wilmer rose to pour another glass of champagne.

‘I suppose she told you why she was considering stopping it?’

‘Yes. That was partly why she phoned me. We had agreed to meet when we were both next in London and then…well…you know.’

Connie smiled.

‘I thrashed her daughter.’

‘I wish you had told me, Connie. As it was I only got her side of the story.’

‘An accurate one, I trust.’

Connie Wilmer sat down again with her drink and waited for her friend to continue. When no response came she continued with her own questioning.

‘Did she discuss it with Sally, as I suggested?’

‘No. She couldn’t bring herself to. So I told her all about you and Andy.’

‘Really?’

‘I even told her that you strapped him again for going to their hotel. I thought it might help. And it did.’

‘The cheque went through, so it must have.’

‘She did say one thing though which I found interesting.’

Paula Michaels gave her friend that self satisfied look she always had when she was the possessor of information she was keen to impart.

‘Go on, Paula.’

‘Although she never discussed it with Sally she had clearly been thinking about the phone conversation she had with you. Learning more from me made everything clearer.’

‘In what way?’

‘Sally’s father left her mother when the girl was about elevcn. Apparently the marriage had been on the rocks for years. Things came to a head when she caught him with one of his girlfriends. They used to have a holiday cottage, somewhere in the Cotswolds, and Mrs Frend went to it unexpectedly to do some clearing out. She caught them, her husband and his girlfriend, playing some bizarre school girlish games.’

‘Ah.’

‘There was a flaming row and she went back home and the marriage broke up shortly afterwards. The thing that has always troubled her, and she had never discussed this with anyone, was that Sally had arrived at the cottage a few minutes before her.’

‘And?’

‘She was watching. Sally was standing at the window watching them. And her mother has never forgotten the look on her face. She seemed fascinated.’

Connie Wilmer rose and went to the window and looked down onto the relentless traffic. She had absorbed everything Paula Michaels had said and it made for an interesting coda to a stimulating time. What was it the earnest sixteen year old girl had said to her that day in her cottage? What was it she had said when she arrived in her, carefully selected, simple schoolgirl clothes? ‘I want to be spanked Mrs Wilmer. I deserve it. And I want to be spanked by you. And…and when it’s over, when you have…..I think I shall know Andy a little better. Does that make sense?’ It did make sense, even then, and it made more sense now. Connie Wilmer finished her drink and went for a long promised and anticipated shower.

 

Andy Styles and Sally Frend stood outside the small cinema looking at the poster. The film festival had been running for three days and their film was being shown for the first time that evening. ‘The Boy In The Black Trunks’ stood out bold and sharp, and in the background to these eye catching words a lonely boy stood high on a cliff top looking at the sea. Sally Frend squeezed Andy’s hand and transmitted her growing excitement. Lyme Regis, that wonderful week in a small town she would never forget, was a long time in the past. Without this poster, this film, you could almost imagine that none of it had ever taken place. But it had taken place and meeting Mrs Wilmer and Paula Michaels again had rekindled all the memories. All the memories of what had happened and would never be forgotten. And when she and her mother arrived in Edinburgh that morning the first person to meet them was Andy. She ran to him and gave him a big kiss on his cheek. Andy blushed, he may be a year older but he still blushed. ‘Sally Pally’ he said and she giggled and kissed him again. They had so much to talk about, so much to remember.

 

Alfred Roy (c) 2009