The sky was clear, the sun shone, and Bertie was standing back in the apartment that he shared with his girlfriend.

He rolled his neck as he stepped through the door – the heavy snow had forced him into staying at his mother’s house for the last two days, and her guest bed was far more rigid than the mattress he was used to. While he appreciated having a place close to work where he could stay, he was far happier getting home to his own bed and the woman he shared it with. He hadn’t spoken to her since the first night he’d stayed over, before his phone lost service and his battery had then died, and their conversation had been… awkward, anyhow.

He was hoping that once they were reunited, that she’d have forgotten what he’d said and they could move on.

It occurred to him only after doffing his shoes, coat and tie that he’d heard nothing from Rachel in the time he’d gotten in. Usually, she’d be shouting out a “Hi, Sweetie!” from her laptop across the room by this time. He didn’t hear the TV either, and her winter boots were still propped up by the door. Instead, he found the bedroom door closed, with a folded piece of paper taped to it. Rachel must have gotten to bed late the night before, probably following a DJ gig and maybe following some drinks.

It was strange for her to still be asleep at – he checked his phone – four in the afternoon, but it wasn’t unprecedented. Stranger still was her need to leave a note when the closed door was self-explanatory. He unfolded the page:

Sorry, had to use your computer. Somebody needs a spanking. ;)

He smiled in spite of himself. For a thirty-year-old woman, Rachel acted like a little girl and he had to admit it was adorable. And while he didn’t object to her using his laptop in place of her own, especially since he hadn’t been around to use it himself, it was pretty clear that his little brat had manufactured an excuse to be put over his knee. He felt a tightness in his loins that agreed with her methods, as those spankings tended to lead to something else that he had gone without for a few weeks now. Well, he could surely keep himself occupied until she woke up, now couldn’t he?

He sniffed at the collar of his uniform. There had been slow stretches where he’d been able to use the same suit for a handful of consecutive shifts, but after two days at his mother’s house, the sweat, steam, and occasional cat hair had taken their toll. These clothes needed washing, and so did he. Before he got involved in anything with Rachel, he was going to need a shower.

His clothes were inaccessible at the moment – shut away in the bedroom with his girlfriend – but his pajamas were folded up on one side of the couch where he’d left them before going to work two days ago. He silently thanked Rachel’s poor housekeeping for leaving him something to change into, and turned on the tap.

At the other end of the apartment, he could see that his laptop was switched on, the screen left open but blank. He’d get to it in a moment.

***

Rachel listened as he turned on the water, and then she waited until she heard the distinctive ‘thunk’ of him switching to the shower line. Finally, she exhaled. He hadn’t heard her moving behind the door, so her surprise was still on her side. She took a moment with the image of Bertie in the shower, unaware, water cascading down his strong back and dripping from his wet butt. A bottom that she was soon going to have her hands all over.

She took one more look at herself in the mirror. The image she’d had in her head had been very specific, but ten years of working in the club scene had provided the wardrobe she’d needed. The corset would have suffocated her if she’d worn it years ago, but now the black acrylic fit her body like a glove and showed off her curves to their best advantage. The mini-skirt had barely fit over her plump hips, but it showed off her thighs, which Bertie would love. Turning around, she noted that her own glutes peeked out from below the hem. That would definitely have her boyfriend’s attention.

The boots had her in a toss-up for a while, but she’d eventually come down on the side of the knee-highs, as opposed to the beautiful but uncomfortable thigh-highs. She’d taken a few pictures of the finished look for her social networking sites, though she would wait to post them until later… and would probably not mention what they were for.

The faucet shut off in the next room, and Rachel turned her attention back to the matter at hand. She didn’t want to make her appearance, not yet. Her plan needed very precise timing, but Bertie was very fastidious in his habits. Right now, he’d be toweling off and dressing in the pajamas that she’d helpfully left out for him. He’d shave next, then wash the stubble out of the sink; she stood still in place. It wasn’t her time, not yet. His next act would be to shut off the light in the bathroom, and the switch stuck, so she’d hear the click. Once that was done, and expecting that Rachel was still asleep, his next action would be to turn on the computer.

And then she’d strike.

***

Bertie rubbed his scalp once more with the towel and stared at his reflection in the black screen. His hair stuck up in a series of wet hedgehog spikes, and he wondered if he shouldn’t get a haircut. He could go now; all he’d have to do was sneak past Rachel… past the creaky door and the squealing track on the dresser. No, he decided, he’d spend an hour or so playing video games with his headphones on; by that time, she’d at least be awake, and he could do what he needed. His goofy hair could wait until then. He wiggled the mouse, bringing his screen to life.

He blanched. His browser was already open, with a dozen or so tabs minimized in the toolbar. So many tabs placed end-to-end made their titles illegible, but he didn’t need to read them to know what they were. The one page at the forefront told him all he needed to know. Miss Alice’s Academy for Boys may have had an innocuous title, but Bertie knew better. The “Academy” was completely fictional, and the site itself was a collection of stories in which various students (all strangely over eighteen) lusted after the titular Miss Alice, a beautiful but strict counselor who handled discipline at the school by means of bare-bottom spankings.

Bertie had read the entire series, often more than once and never when Rachel was home and awake. His fantasy of being dominated and spanked by a woman had led him to visit a number of porn sites – some of which he suspected were the ones bookmarked below – but the stories on the Academy had spoken most to him. Miss Alice was sensual and supportive of her charges, but had very clear limits and didn’t make idle threats, as many a misbehaving young man had discovered. But he hadn’t visited the site in weeks and had been out of the house for the last two days. Surely he couldn’t have been so careless as to leave the page open, much less all of those below it.

And then he remembered the words from Rachel’s note: Sorry, had to use your computer. He felt the blood rushing like fire to his head. She knew now.

Somebody needs a spanking.

“Welcome home, honey,” came a sugary voice behind him.

Somehow, despite the boots that extended past her kneecaps and brought her up to nearly matching height with him, she’d managed to sneak up on him. Her arms were bare, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the outfit she was wearing, the corset that flowed over her figure like oil, and the barely-there skirt. She’d been waiting for him, all right. She pointed a thin, accusing finger at the incriminatory laptop.

“So, when did this start?”

Maybe if he’d been prepared, he could have spun a story that would have confused, if not convinced, her or put it down to a passing curiosity. Or if he’d been properly dressed, he could have excused himself somehow and bought time that way. But she’d done her homework, brought back every site he’d visited without a safe-search filter, and taken her time to display the evidence before confronting him with it. He was caught, and he’d have been impressed if he weren’t so wracked with terror. His voice trembled as he searched for the words.

“I…”

“Out with it, mister!”

God, she was beautiful.

“A long time,” he finally spat out, “I always knew I was into… punishment, but it was like, it was more natural to be the one on top.  When I met you, I figured I got half of what I wanted, and that was going to be good enough.”

“You never thought to ask?”

He shook his head. “I thought you’d think less of me. I mean, I try to be the responsible one…” he saw the look that crossed her face and changed tactics. “I mean, you act like a brat, you’re half my size…”

“And somehow, you forgot that I’m older than you; I’ve lived on my own for way longer, and I don’t feel the need to take myself so seriously. So, you want to get spanked once in a while?” Bertie felt his guts clench as she emphasized the word. “Do something about it, or don’t. But we’ve been together for over three years, and we share these things. You don’t get to decide when I’m ready.”

Bertie’s mouth went dry. He had nothing to say, and Rachel knew it. She took him tenderly by the hand.

He stammered, “Are you going to…”

“Can you think of any reason I shouldn’t?” She phrased it rhetorically, but he recognized that she was giving him an out, if he chose to take it.

And if he did, they wouldn’t bring it up again, the opportunity would pass him by and she might forgive him for his silence if he wasn’t going to follow through. But he had tried to bring it up before. He had wanted the opportunity. And she had every right to be angry with him for keeping secrets.

He shook his head.

*** 

Rachel gulped inwardly. She’d given him the chance to back out if he chose, and he… he’d declined it. This was happening. They were both in uncharted waters here, and now she found herself at the helm.

She led him to the couch. Under the same circumstances, he’d have probably picked her up bodily and hauled her over to a chair, but Bertie was right about one thing – she was much smaller than he was, and that was going to have to be accommodated. So, instead, she left him standing while she settled down in the centre of the couch. It was long enough that Bertie would be able to lie down comfortably – well, comfortably enough. There was only one more thing to decide before she began…

His hands, folded in front of him, were trembling. Poor Bertie! He was always so nervous about trying something new for the first time. Where, she wondered, was his sense of adventure? That made up her mind, and she yanked his pajama pants down to his knees. The shock on his face was an adorable sight, and she couldn’t help but notice his cock rising as his only layer of cover descended. Later, she decided. Right now her focus was on another part of his anatomy.

She could feel the pounding of his heart as he stretched out across her lap, his butt perched over her knees. A rush came over her, power and arousal and something that she couldn’t quite explain. Was it a sense of responsibility? Bertie had given himself to her, and now the pressure was on her to do it right. She was going to give her boyfriend a bare-bottom spanking. The words gave her a kind of giddy thrill.

Bertie fidgeted uncomfortably in his place, his swelling member pushing urgently against her warm thighs. Having been in his position so many times, Rachel felt almost sorry for him. But he’d brought this on himself… and it was time for her to get to work. Hesitantly, she raised her hand, picked a spot in the middle of his right cheek, and came down hard.

It was the sound more than the sensation that surprised him. He’d taken exactly one spanking as a grown man, and that had been a jokey, if embarrassing, bun-warming in the back of his restaurant – a small, closed-off space that had absorbed most of the noise. But the smack that Rachel’s hand made off his rear end was so much louder than he’d expected. His first thought was, what if the neighbours hear? Then he remembered how many times he’d put Rachel through this exact scenario, and a chain of swats off his backside reminded him of the position he was in, and that he had asked for this. He’d wanted it for years.

His head swam, and if he had not been braced by the couch, he’d have fallen on the floor. Rachel slid a reassuring hand under his shirt into the small of his back. She couldn’t stop him if he collapsed – but right now, he was floating. She had nothing to worry about.

He flinched. Her slaps were coming harder and faster; she’d been building up to this. This was the punishment he’d been expecting, the toe-curling, leg-crossing punishment that he’d inflicted on her all those times. Was she as turned on then, as he felt right now? And then, suddenly, she stopped.

Was she done? He looked over his shoulder. Maybe she’d heard the catch in his breath and thought he was hurt? No, he saw; she was rubbing her slim and very red palm. She’d only injured herself.

“You should cup your hand slightly,” he found himself panting, “It’s less hard on your fingers.”

She smirked. “Thank you for the advice, sweetie. It’s good to know you care about the quality of your spanking.” He blushed beet red at this. “But I already have something else in mind.”

***

She could read the oven timer from where she sat with Bertie in her lap, and it what it had been telling her was not promising. She’d spent about four minutes laying into Bertie’s little tushie, and all she’d accomplished was bringing some pink into his cheeks and losing almost all feeling in her right hand. The entire arm was on pins and needles, and she was sure at this point that he wasn’t feeling it.

It wasn’t like Bertie had a great pain tolerance - she’d seen him cry over mildly spicy food. There had been a point where she was worried about hurting him, but now she knew she was going to need to try harder just to get him to react. But she’d planned ahead for exactly this kind of situation.

Before springing her plan, she’d looked into some of the websites where Bertie had been secretly spending his time, including the Miss Alice page. She wanted to know what would turn him on, what would get him to submit, and how she was supposed to punish someone so much bigger than herself.

Miss Alice, true to her reputation, had been an excellent teacher. In one of those stories – one that Bertie must have stroked off to several times, judging from his browser history – a student under her care had falsely incriminated his girlfriend to protect himself in a prank gone wrong. Instead of punishing the miscreant herself, Miss Alice had handed the task over to his slighted girlfriend, who handled the task with relish… and what she couldn’t accomplish by her hand alone, she finished with a hairbrush from her purse.

Rachel reached to the side of the couch where she’d left her handbag. She felt Bertie twisting on her lap, confused by the sudden movement. She pressed on his shoulder, forcing him back down as she returned with her prize. Did he suspect what she had in mind? She stifled a giggle and dangled the brush over his bottom, tickling him with the bristles. His cheeks might not have been bruised, but they were certainly sensitive. She wished she could see his face right now.

This time, rather than bringing her hand over her head and down, she let her wrist do the work, and the brush made a resounding smack off of his backside that made Bertie jump in her lap.

“Any more suggestions, honey?” she asked.

His answer, if he had one, was lost in a prolonged groan that escaped through his teeth. His ankles twisted together, drawing his pajama pants even further down and swallowing his feet. Now, this, she decided, was going to be a real spanking.

*** 

Bertie very nearly bit his tongue to keep from crying out. While Rachel’s attempt to spank him by hand hadn’t been felt as much as she’d hoped, she’d created a fertile ground on which to set his ass aflame with the hairbrush. He tried in vain to lie still, but the heat was very quickly becoming too intense. He writhed over her knees, an action that only served to put more pressure on his other sensitive organ.

While Rachel’s earlier patting had left him stiff and wanting, this new barrage had withered his ardour considerably. Please let her stop, he thought to himself, please! Each whack rang in the air for a second before the sensation began again, ever-heightening. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore – he let out all of his stored pain in one wall-shaking cry that dragged out for a small eternity. Rachel sat frozen on the couch, halted in mid-swing.

She recovered a moment later. “Bertie? Are you…?”

“I’m okay. I’m… ow…” His voice came out as a ragged gasp, “I just…”

She put down the brush and slapped him once more with her hand. “You just thought you should take it in silence, did you? Did that make you feel tough?”

“Ow! No, it didn’t.”

“Then you deserved that,” she concluded. She helped him up to his feet, and he kicked off the useless pants that still clung to one leg. Unbidden, he started to rub his sore cheeks, and he could feel the sting subside, the sensation moving forward in his body. Rachel noticed it as well and grinned approvingly. He bent down to kiss her, but she stopped him with a finger.

“Oh, I don’t think we’re done with this yet. Turn around, hands on your head.”

Bertie blushed. He’d made Rachel stand in the corner only once after one of her spankings, and it was abundantly clear that she’d remembered how it felt. Remembered… and had bided her time. In fact, it struck Bertie in retrospect how trusting he’d been in submitting to the woman whom he’d himself spanked so many times before.

He did as she told him. He could hear the tinny grinding of a zipper behind him and a whisper of fabric sliding from skin. He heard her take a step up to him, and then she leaned over his shoulder and softly bit him on the lowest corner of his ear.

It was all the encouragement he needed. He scooped Rachel into his arms and laid her down on the couch, smothering her with kisses until she guided his mouth down, down. He lapped vigorously at her clitoris, and she reached over and smacked his smarting behind until he found the pace she was seeking. She groaned in pleasure, anchoring his head in place with her thighs. In what seemed like an instant, she came, shouting to the heavens and releasing Bertie from his headlock. She looked up at him, glowing and hungry for more. He was in no mood to wait, either.

***

Minutes later, on the floor, they turned to look at one another.

“Did you…” he started, “I mean, again?”

She nodded. “Who would have thought that was such a turn-on?”

“Yeah.” He shifted to one side, the laminate floor pricking at his tender backside. Rachel gave him a look to suggest that she was sympathetic to his pain, but not at all sorry.

“Have you ever told anyone else about this?” she asked, out of the blue.

“Sophie, at the restaurant. She..." he thought quickly, "She heard about what you and I used to get up to.”

“Uh-huh,” she replied, her face impassive. He couldn’t tell for a minute how she would react. Slowly, she cracked a smile.

“You shared that with her first? You bad boy, you know what that’s going to get you.” She swung her palm, catching him on the leg.

“I’m the one in trouble? Have you forgotten how you broke into my computer?”

Rachel actually went red for a moment. Bertie grinned. The little brat…

Their relationship was about to enter some interesting new ground.