Rachel squinted against the dim ring of lights surrounding the bathroom mirror. In front of and around her, the walls throbbed with the heavy beat of the music she’d left playing before she’d slipped in here to “freshen up”. The face that stared back at her was damp with sweat, her mascara dribbling in a line that threatened to lead to her upper lip. Her short shock of green hair lay flattened against her scalp. Not the cleanest she’d looked by far, but Rachel consoled herself with the thought that she still looked hot.

The kids that filled this club every weekend – and they were kids, university students in their early twenties, hopped up on youthful vigor and overpriced drinks – still whooped and hollered when she took the stage, and she rarely had to sing to provoke that reaction. She was the most popular club DJ in the city – which as it turned out was a double-edged sword, as her reputation made her too extreme a choice to host weddings and corporate events, where the real money was.

But she didn’t do this job just to pay the rent, she was here to make music, loudmusic. She loved it, but she could see right at that moment how much it took out of her. She ran the water in the sink for a moment, tapping her finger through the stream until it ran cool enough. She wadded up a paper towel and dipped it in the sink, pressing it against her forehead and fighting the temptation to dunk her whole head in the basin. The stage had been sweltering even without the additional help of hundreds of young bodies.

The door slammed behind her, startling her and nearly causing her to drop her eyeliner. A tiny voice whispered “oops” somewhere in the dark, and Rachel relaxed. It meant that whatever dipshit was banging around, they were just being clumsy and not hostile.

Her new companion stumbled up to the mirror, feet moving uncertainly in shiny new stiletto heels. The girl’s long black hair covered her face as she concentrated on staying upright, and each movement caused a flicker of light to move across the silver cocktail dress that clung to her small, round frame. Rachel blinked. The girl looked familiar…

She advanced to the sink beside Rachel and parted the hair from her eyes. Without taking her eyes too far from their own reflection, Rachel recognized the dark irises of the girl beside her, her lush brown cheeks, her full lips. She held her gaze too long, and Rachel felt the girl staring back.

“Maya?” she finally asked.

An awkward silence hung between them. They’d met several weeks back, following the end of exams, when Maya had come out for a rare night of drinking with her friends. And while Rachel had taken the group for a tight-laced, studious cluster of pre-meds, the six girls had attacked their one night of freedom with the fervor of sailors on shore leave. Maya had quickly become smitten with Rachel and had spent the latter half of the night openly flirting with the DJ – much to Rachel’s surprise and confusion, as she watched the shy Indian girl shed her inhibitions with only a handful of jello shooters.

Finally, Maya had asked if she could have a kiss, and Rachel, a little tipsy herself, relented. By the time they’d come up for air, Maya’s friends were nowhere to be found and the two had left the club together.

“Rachel?” the other girl responded with a touch of shock. “I’m just surprised to see you here… I mean, I know you work here, but… you look good.”

“Thanks,” Rachel responded, deciding not to ask for clarification. Did Maya mean that she looked good for someone hosing off between sets? She looked good for a woman of thirty-one? Or did she look good for someone that Maya had last seen sprawled over her boyfriend’s lap with her panties at her ankles?

She hadn’t seen Maya since that night, when they’d come back to Rachel’s apartment, both a little drunk and stoned, making what she hadn’t realized at the time to be an enormous racket at four in the morning. Between her late arrival and the revelation that she’d been making out with someone else, Bertie had been livid and had barely waited for Maya to leave before hauling Rachel off for a bare-bottomed spanking. But unknown to both of them, Maya had turned around and come back, hoping for a ride home – and she caught an eyeful. The sheer terror on Maya’s face upon walking in on that scene had stayed with Rachel ever since.

And that look was starting to creep back in Maya’s expression, as much as she was trying to suppress it.

“If you’re going to say something, Maya…”

The younger girl gulped. “Should I have called the police or something that night?” She timidly reached out to Rachel.

Rachel sighed and dropped her gaze.

“No, it’s… look, it’s just something that Bertie and I are in to, if that makes sense. It’s not abuse or anything…”

“Does he do that to you often?”

Trying her best to look engrossed in her makeup, Rachel deadpanned, “What do you mean?”

Maya blushed, “I mean, does he…?” she mimed a smacking motion with her hand. Rachel nodded, hoping again that this would be the end of discussion. She quite liked this girl, but her questions were getting far too intimate, no matter what she had seen at the apartment. Or before, she thought, remembering how frisky Maya had been before they’d left the club.

Her answers seemed to satisfy Maya, who by this point had long forgotten why she’d taken a washroom break. She tottered on her heels as she turned to leave Rachel to her application.

She’d gotten as far as the door before Rachel heard the click of her heels stop.

“I just have one more question…” Maya began.

Rachel put down her eyeliner and waited.

“Do you like it?”

Suddenly, Rachel got it. Maya’s curiosity wasn’t based on trying to understand some bizarre ritual that she’d overseen. And that hadn’t been terror she’d glimpsed on Maya’s face all those weeks ago. She slowly and deliberately replaced the cap of her tube.

“Maya, have you ever been spanked before?”

Crimson flared up beneath the dark skin on Maya’s face. It was the same reaction she’d seen in Bertie years ago – the same reaction that she could still sometimes bring out in him if she caught him off-guard. Bertie had gone to university too, maybe it was part of a being educated and well-spoken person, that you couldn’t just fucking say what you wanted. Maya gave up trying to stammer a response and finally just shook her head.

Rachel cocked an eyebrow, mostly for show. “Really? You and your boyfriend – or girlfriend – never tried it? Just a little slap?” She mimed the action just as Maya had before, and the younger woman reflexively covered her backside with both hands. Poor girl, Rachel thought, you’ve got the kink bad.

“M-my family…” managed Maya, “They want me to concentrate on my studies. I don’t have time for a relationship, much less the kind of time and trust it would take for… your kind of thing.”

Rachel nodded. A nebulous idea was starting to form in her head. It was going to require some very diplomatic discussion with Bertie before she pursued this, of course, but she suspected that he might go along with it with the right motivation. He’d reacted poorly to her last little tryst with this girl, but that had less to do with jealousy than that she’d gone behind his back.

Maya gave her an odd look, and it came to Rachel that she’d been smirking and nodding her head for a few seconds too long.

“Is there something you want to ask me?” she offered.

Silence followed. Finally, Maya squeaked out, “Everyone in my dorm has gone home for Reading Week. We could have the place to ourselves.”

“I’m not hearing a question.”

A series of words, too quiet and high-pitched stumbled from Maya’s lips.

“Stand up, young lady!”

Maya reflexively snapped upright. Rachel had no interest in children of her own, she’d spent very little time with others’, but one didn’t maintain control over a crowded room of young people without being able to break out the Mom Voice.

Terrified, Maya repeated, “Could you talk to your boyfriend and see if he could come over and…” she gulped, “…spank me? I would like you to be there as well.”

Rachel gaped. This was going to be a little more difficult than she’d thought.

***

“She wants me to spank her?”

Rachel nodded. She’d waited until dinner to spring Maya’s request on her fiancé, as he was washing dishes. She’d offered to take care of them herself this evening as a conciliatory gesture, but Bertie had always insisted on cleaning right after eating. By the time she’d opened her mouth to ask the question, he was already soaping up.

“You should have seen her trying to ask the question. She’s so shy—"

“When she’s sober, you mean.”

“Well, yeah. Listen, I just thought you’d be interested.”

Bertie set a plate carefully in the drying rack, making a loud clank as the weight of wire tray shifted.

“Why? I’ll admit your friend is cute, but she’s new to this and kind of young. You’ve got all the intimacy problems of a three-way, plus if she doesn’t like it she might charge me with assault.”

“And you’ve ever been in a three-way?” Rachel interjected, even as she mentally kicked herself for doing so. She was Bertie’s senior by four years, and had been far more “experience” than he when they’d started dating. And as much as she assured him over the years that she was far more interested in compatibility over variety, that still meant that she had partaken in the kind of sex acts that Bertie could only dream of, and that she had no desire to repeat.

Still, she’d brought up the subject. “The trick is that you have to establish boundaries first. She doesn’t know you any better than you know her, why do you think she wants me there?”

Bertie nodded, conceding the point.

“Do you want to do this?”

Yes, Rachel thought, but she couldn’t express why. Maybe, like Maya, she was just curious – she’d been receiver and giver of spankings before, but she’d never been an observer. Maybe she’d learn something.

She smiled and gave Bertie a thumbs-up.

***

“Maya Kapoor?”

Rachel released the button on the speaker and rubbed her eyes. She and Bertie had lost much of the night discussing how they would approach what was about to happen. She’d had to make one major concession, but Bertie had argued that it would serve both to excite Maya and put her at ease.

He stood beside her, leaning from one leg to the other. Maya had last seen Bertie after he’d been dragged out of bed, unshaven and in his pajamas. He’d dressed to dispel that image today, in slacks and a stiff sleeveless shirt that he’d ironed that morning while Rachel had slept. But his formal appearance had reckoned without the weather, and even under his coat he was shivering.

Rachel had seen no reason to compensate, and was more practically clad in two overlapping sweaters and stretchy leggings that while thin, kept her body heat enclosed. Underneath, she wore a black tank top, not unlike those she had worn to gigs in the past. It would be something familiar in an unfamiliar place.

A buzzer sounded, and the door in front of them unlocked. They stepped into the residence to find that Maya had been right, and the building was abandoned.

The number Maya had given them placed her on the third floor. When the doors opened, Rachel spotted her waving at them from a room down the hall. She looked like she’d just gotten out of bed in her T-shirt and sweatpants, both emblazoned with the university logo, but the dark spots behind her eyes revealed a different story – she’d been awake for hours. Anticipating? Dreading? It was time to find out.

She took their coats and offered them tea as she locked the door behind them, which both she and Bertie declined. “Maybe after,” she winked, and the younger girl blushed again.

Her room was tiny, smaller than a motel single, but had managed to fit beds for both Maya and her (presumed) roommate. As Bertie sat down on the farther of the two beds, she watched his eyes drift across the books and movies on Maya’s shelves, no doubt comparing her accommodations to the ones in which he’d spent his own school days.

She sat down beside him and cleared her throat. They’d come here for a reason, and he was expected to take control.

“Thank you very much for having us here, Maya. Rachel tells me that there’s something you wanted to ask me?”

Her eyes bulged. “I thought she told you…”

“Oh, she did. But I needed to hear it from you. So that you understand what’s about to happen here.”

“You’re… going to spank me?”

“Am I?” Rachel was about to warn him off, but Bertie held up a hand before she could speak. “I understand this is moving very fast for you, but I’ve also been told you’ve never been spanked before. Is that right?”

Maya shook her head miserably.

“Not even when you were young?”

She shook her head again, her eyes wet. Rachel took a tissue from the pack beside Maya’s bed and offered it to her. She was impressed with Bertie, usually even mentioning the word “spanking” made him squeamish. Either he had gotten over his phobia in the very recent past – or it was telling how hard he was working at getting through to Maya.

He’d taken their discussion about boundaries seriously, considerate not only of how Maya was feeling, but how she needed to feel before they could proceed, and Rachel felt a brief flicker of envy for the younger girl. She and Bertie hadn’t had this talk until much later in their relationship, and it had been a hard wait.

“Rachel, come here, please.”

Bertie’s voice snapped her back to the present. She found him gesturing toward her, while Maya stared at her in wide-eyed shock.

“What?”

“Maya needs to know what she’s getting herself in to, and I need a participant more than a witness right now. Come on,” he added, patting his lap. The gesture left no room for ambiguity.

“But she hasn’t done anything!” Maya protested.

“This is a demonstration, not a punishment,” said Bertie, “Why don’t you sit down on the bed opposite so you have a better view. Rachel?”

She stood up beside a speechless Maya and spread herself across his lap without a word. Facing the wall, her expression carefully neutral, she waited as Bertie pushed up the low-hanging fabric of her sweater, exposing the seat of the leggings that thinly encased her round behind. He set his hand down gently, and she clenched reflexively as he began to softly pet the surface.

“Are you comfortable, sweetie?” she heard him asking, before he turned back to Maya. “Position is important, you want to be supported at the centre of gravity, especially if you’re on a stool or a chair. As you can see, Rachel here is somewhat bottom-heavy…”

She snorted. She was going to remember that crack the next time…

“Quiet, you. So once comfortable in place, then your top – the person on top, I mean, the one giving the spanking – is going to start soft and slow.” He raised his hand and brought it down in a cupped pose that made more noise than impact. “Think of it like calibration – he’s going to need to know what your tolerance is before just whacks away.”

He spanked Rachel a few more times, his arm never rising above shoulder level. Her pants took the brunt of it, and Rachel kept her attention on his tutorial, biting her lip to keep from commenting. For all the importance he was placing on calibration and tolerance, it had been a lesson that had taken him some time to learn himself.

Maya was sitting across from her, drinking in the scene as Bertie’s hand descended again and again. He counted out twenty smacks and then stopped to rub Rachel’s behind.

“How are you feeling, honey?”

“Better now,” she purred as Bertie’s fingers dug softly into the flesh of her butt beneath the fabric. He chuckled and raised his arms so that she could get up.

“Can she feel anything through those pants?” asked Maya, trying in vain to underplay her disappointment.

Rachel admitted, “A little.” Then, to Maya’s evident surprise, she pulled down her own tights down to her knees, stripping down to a black bikini brief with ties on the side. As the other girl’s shock began to subside, she resumed her place on Bertie’s lap.

Readjusting her sweater, he continued, “You can start the spanking fully clothed or completely nude if you want, it doesn’t matter. Each time you remove a layer, your top should start again, slow and soft.” He struck down on Rachel’s bare cheeks with slightly more force than before, and she nearly jumped. 

“This is important, you want to be the one determining how hard you want him to be. Be vocal and react, have a safe word ready. Your top is going to be reading you and your body language to tell him what to do. If you need him to slow down, take a break…”

Rachel lost the rest as the spanking grew in intensity and volume, the smack of flesh on flesh pinging off the wall beside them. Rachel winced, feeling her legs moving of their own accord, swimming in the air above the bed. Bertie paused.

“Is that normal?” she heard Maya asking.

“That means that it’s starting to sting. At this point, I don’t need to use any force, because what she’s feeling is cumulative – it builds up over time and repetition. How are you feeling, sweetie?”

“Warm,” she snapped back. The heat was quickly building up on the surface of her skin, and no matter how many times she found herself in this pose, the sensation never got any more bearable. And she knew that Bertie wasn’t done yet.

“She looks warm.”

Bertie pursed his lips. “Yeah, her butt’s got a pretty nice about it right now, doesn’t it? Do you want to cop a feel?” Maya shook her head. “Come on, I know you’ve put more than your hand there.”

It was true, and Maya’s embarrassment drove her to hide her face in her hands. She hadn’t just locked lips with Rachel while drunk, she’d also planted a kiss on Rachel’s bubble bottom as well. Bertie would have never known had it not been for a distinctive smudge of purple lipstick. Hesitantly, she lowered one hand and reached.

“Well?”

“It’s really hot.”

She didn’t notice Bertie’s smirk at her observation, but Rachel caught it as she looked over her shoulder. Maya shrunk back to her mattress and waited eagerly for the next part of the lesson. And knowing what was to come, Rachel exhaled.

She heard, “Rachel, are you ready?” and nodded, lifting her hips. His fingers closed around either side of the waistband of her panties and slowly pulled, leaving her naked between the small of her back to the crook of her knee. Rachel tried to keep her composure, but it had been years since anyone but Bertie had seen this much of her. She shook from humiliation, her eyes damp.

But it was more than her eyes that were growing wet, as she had no doubt her audience had noticed. Maya hiccupped, her throat suddenly dry, and tried to look away.

“Pay attention, Maya.”

“I’m sorry...”  

“You wanted to know what it was like, yes? This is what a spanking is like, Maya, it’s embarrassing, it’s painful, it’s exposing on a number of levels. And those are its selling points.” 

“I know,” said Maya, licking her parched lips, “And I’m very thankful you came, and Rachel, I am so grateful that you offered… But I can’t ask you to do this for me.”

Rachel nodded through gritted teeth, still prone over Bertie’s lap. He was resting his hand over the curve of her hip, but the fire in her bare bottom wasn’t going anywhere. She had to remind herself that she couldn’t blame Maya for being a flake, the kid hadn’t known what she was asking for. This had been a terrible idea.

Maya continued, “Can you please… can you please punish me instead?”

Silence filled the air for half a minute, and then Bertie gently patted Rachel’s behind, prompting her to step off his lap. She pulled her panties back up, hissing as the coarse fabric rubbed itself against her freshly spanked rear. The leggings, she decided, could be left off for the time being. She kneeled down on the opposite bed, determined not to miss the show.

With an audible gulp, Maya rose toward Bertie, fingering the drawstring on her sweats.

“Do you want me to…?”

“Understand, you are going to be spanked on your bare bottom before the end. But how much clothing is removed, and when – that’s up to you.”

Maya miserably weighed the point for some seconds. Finally, she shucked her pants entirely, standing now in pink full-backed panties. With Bertie’s help, she laid herself over his knees, her fat bottom resting in his lap. She whimpered between heavy breaths.

“It’s alright, Maya. I won’t start until you’re ready.”

She wiggled in place for a moment longer, uncertain if she should stay or run. Rachel watched as she began to calm down – and almost missed her squeak out a timid “okay”.

Bertie missed no such thing. He swung down, his hand cupped as he had demonstrated earlier. His hand splashed against Maya’s bum cheek with a sound that took Rachel aback. Maya’s mouth formed a little “o” of surprise, but she didn’t show any signs of pain. Bertie slapped her a half-dozen more times, alternating between glutes so that as one finished wobbling, he had already come down on the other.

“How is this?” he asked.

She whistled and rose up on her elbows. “It feels kind of good,” she admitted.

“Do you want to take it a little harder?”

Maya nodded with an enthusiasm that surprised Rachel.

Bertie continued, his arm rising ever so slightly higher with each subsequent smack. Each time Maya would respond with a little “ooh” noise. Rachel snickered quietly, unable to help herself. 

After a couple of minutes, Bertie stopped and switched to rubbing Maya’s quickly warming cheeks, for which she cooed appreciatively. He asked if thought she could take a little more.

“Oh yes,” she whispered, “I’ve been a very bad girl. Please…”

Rachel was floored by the young woman’s sudden immodesty, but if Bertie shared her surprise, he didn’t show it. “I won’t argue with that, after all I seem to remember you getting up to some fuss with my fiancée. But are you sure? Because naughty girls don’t get to keep their panties.”

From her perch on his lap, Maya shuddered, her buttocks jiggling. Mustering against every instinct, she raised her hips as she’d seen Rachel do—

“Wait.”

Rachel stood up, catching Bertie off-guard, and reached for the waistband of Maya’s panties. She peeled them down with excruciating slowness, enjoying the sight of clenched gooseflesh as she revealed it from below the fabric. She stopped at the top of Maya’s thighs, deciding that the poor girl was likely exposed enough. She was hiding her face in what sheets she could pull close, but made no attempt to cover her lower half.

Adding his thanks for Rachel’s assistance, Bertie returned his attention back to his half-naked charge. “Shall we continue?”

She whispered an assent through the cloth covering her face, and his hand swung into the air again. This time, he didn’t bother with a slow build. He’d taken Maya’s measure, and had already determined the level of force he would use – not only that she could endure, but that she also craved as she gasped, whined and kicked. Almost lost in her fussing was another sound coming from the base of her throat, a deep contralto that rose as her wiggling bottom grew crimson and hot to the touch.

With a pair of quick, hard slaps, Bertie finished. He left Maya sniffling quietly over his knee for several moments, soothing the heat with a tender hand.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

Rachel leaned in to hear a response, but nothing came out of Maya’s lips - she laid in a daze, her spit thick. She grunted an incoherent response and took Bertie’s hand, lurching into a standing position with little more grace than Rachel had seen the day before. Rachel caught a glimpse of the dark hair of Maya’s pubic mound as the girl twisted at the shoulder, craning to see her freshly coloured backside for herself. Noticing that Bertie was still waiting on an answer, she cleared her throat.

“It still feels like I sat on the stove,” she remarked, seemingly unaware of the view she was offering Rachel. She gestured toward the bathroom. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Her panties still caught somewhere above her knees, Maya shuffled into the tiny room and shut the door. Rachel and Bertie, now alone, sat in silence on opposite beds. Now that their experiment had ended, neither one knew what was supposed to happen next.

“She really liked that, didn’t she?”

“That worries me, actually,” Bertie murmured, “You’re sure that we haven’t just invited a near-stranger into our private life? How do we—"

Rachel raised a finger to his lips. “She’s got her own life, and she doesn’t let her hair down very often. I think we’re probably safe. And if it makes you feel better, next time I’ll punish our bad girl.” She pushed him over, straddling him from above – and feeling resistance from under his belt. “Unless you’re not willing to give it up.”

He bit his lip. “It was… kind of hot.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I was watching.”

They kissed, softly and quietly.

“Do you hear something?” Bertie whispered.

Rachel tilted her head and listened. A faint buzzing emanated from the nearby bathroom, accentuated by low groans. Bertie recognized it, too. As silently as they could manage, the couple picked up their clothes and slipped out the door, leaving Maya to her own ministrations.

“I told you she liked it,” Rachel whispered as they stepped back into the elevator. “But I didn’t think she… you know, liked it, liked it.”

Bertie was beet red. “Please stop talking, sweetie.”

“Gives you ideas, though, doesn’t it?” She leaned against the wall of the elevator car, pushing her pert bottom toward Bertie.

“Rachel, you’re incorrigible.”

“Uh-huh. And what are you going to do about it?”

A shameless scream echoed through the top floors of the residence as the car descended, drowning out the sounds of spanking within.