Thomas Hickey was not a happy man. The 19 year old student was having a bad day. The passengers were all complaining, and his teammates were making little headway on the 300 or so cabins that were occupied the night before, on the Cross Channel Ferry, “Pride of Bordeaux”. The day’s passenger numbers were not as high as the 1,800 they had on board the night before, but all the complaints were slowing him down. He was seven-deck supervisor for the day, in the absence of his normal supervisor, Dawn, who had gone ashore to have a broken finger set. His teammates were slow today, no doubt about that, and he thought that some of them thought he was a soft touch, and wouldn’t shout at them if they sat down for a smoke every now and then. The weather didn’t help, and two of the hotel services crew had already gone back their crew cabins because of seasickness. The job was unpleasant. Every other cabin had vomit on the floors of the bedroom and bathroom, so it wasn’t a nice place to be. They had to get the cabins stripped and re-sheeted and their bathrooms cleaned before they arrived in England, in preparation for their fully booked overnight sailing to France. He looked at the passenger manifest. Another 2000 odd on tonight, and the weather was scheduled to blow all night. He swore quietly under his breath, and walked down the long corridor checking into each room to see how his team was getting on. They had hardly started! There was no way they were going to have all the cabins done before they docked! Raising an eyebrow, Tom wondered where indeed his team actually was. He listened. Nothing. He could hear the strains of New Order coming out of Lisa’s portable stereo all the way down the other end of the corridor. Then he heard, distantly, Marcus’s laugh. Expressionless, was walked quickly down towards the noise. Eight cabin crewmembers were sat in one of the end cabins, all smoking and drinking coffee. “Nice of you to get me one…” he said to no one in particular, as he sat down, shut his eyes, and craned his head back to rest on the bulkhead. “Tom, are we on a late one tonight?” asked Marcus, with a grin. “Yeah, looks like it, but we’ll be all fucking night if you lot don’t kick off with these four berths…”Tom replied, with a long draw on his last Marlboro Light. “Fuck it. Are we going to get any help from the eight-deck lot?” Marcus followed up with little conviction in his voice. “What do you think?” Tom muttered, with a sarcastic grin. Without waiting for the inevitable stream of swearing and complaints, he went on. “You know, we have to get this deck banged out by eight or we’ll not have it sorted for when they start embarkation for tonight, and I for one am not fucking telling Brenda that we fucked it all up today…She’ll fucking kill me. Its all right for you lot, you can fuck off down to the cabins, and get wasted tonight, but ill have to take the abuse for this. Come on guys, stop taking the piss, ok? I could really do with another smoke, ….cheers Lisa, Like I said, we need to get it done ok? We’ve had all morning, and got fuck-all anywhere, so lets pull the collective finger out ok?” “Fuck it” seemed to be the consensus of opinion of the other eight. Donna, a short haired brunette, said presently. “Can I get them cans out of your cabin , Tom? Its Siobhan’s birthday tonight and we are having a bit of a sesh in Chris’s cabin tonight. You said we could have them, so can I go get them now please?” Tom, smiled, at the thought of getting a few cold ones down his neck after his shift ended, and handed over his cabin key. “Don’t take them through reception ok?” He mustered. Donna stuck up her middle finger and shot back, “Don’t get hit by any stray comets or nothing ok?” It was illegal to drink or take drugs at all for any crew members whilst embarked on the ship, and since the shifts lasted two weeks, and more for some, as they lived on board, the crew abused this rule somewhat. Some of the wildest parties Tom had ever experienced had been on board the “Pride of Bordeaux”, such as four nights ago, when he had first bedded Donna, and the two of them had spent each night since in his cabin. Maybe that was why he was so tired. In order for Donna to take the two crates of San Miguel lager from Tom’s cabin to Christine’s, she had to cross the upper car deck which runs between the two corridors on each side of the ship, to separate the Men from the Women, which she mused, was an abject failure to say the least. She slipped into Tom’s cabin, and opened up his drawer underneath his fitted bed. She picked up the two crates, and carried them out of the cabin, and dropped one can onto the hard carpet floor. She swore, and then decided to come back later and pick up the errant can. She pushed out of the door, and pulled the door to. Crossing the upper car deck through two sets of watertight bulkhead doors, she dropped the crates off in her friend’s cabin, and trotted unevenly up the rolling stairs to seven-deck where Tom, Marcus and the rest were still sat in the forward cabin. She handed the keys back to Tom, and picked her coffee. Tom put the keys into his top pocket, and stood up. He and the seven-deck team had cabins to clean. Three decks below, Brenda Stafford, Chief Purser for the “Pride of Bordeaux” glided down the four-deck corridor, despite the heavy swell, heading for the forward stairwell. A classically attractive woman of 44, she was five and a half feet tall, with a nice hourglass figure, accentuated by age. Her shoulder length mousy coloured hair, showed streaks of blonde gray, and her white blouse, was brilliantly white in the weak sunshine that forced its way through the picture windows to her left. She walked past the crew cabins, glancing into the occasional open door, and greeting the occupant with a well-practiced smile. She walked past Tom’s cabin, and seeing it was open glanced inside without breaking stride. Nobody was in. She shrugged almost imperceptibly and continued walking. Five paces further down the corridor she froze. The Ship lurched into another heavy swell, and as the hiss of spray from through the hull subsided she turned on her heel and walked slowly back to the cabin she had just glanced into. Sure enough, on the floor, lay the prone form of a single can of San Miguel. Ten minutes later, Tom heard his name being called, from down the corridor. He poked his head out of the cabin he was in, glad of the distraction, as he was in the process of putting powder down on yet another pool of sick, in yet another cabin. The voice was that of Brenda Stafford. He stepped out of cabin, and turned the corner into the main corridor, and almost walked into, sure enough, Mrs Stafford. “Hiya Brenda, what can I do you for?” he smiled, and looked at Brenda’s deadpan expression. “How long is it going to take you to finish this deck, Tom?” she asked, with no emotion in her voice. “Depends how many more puddles of puke ive got to deal with, er…I dunno, say half five quarter to six something like that….” He replied nonchalantly. “Ok, well when you’ve finished it, I want to see you in the office, when you have finished this deck, before you go up to nine.” She stated evenly. Tom thought nothing of it. Two hours later, a nicotine starved Tom knocked on Brenda’s office door. As Purser, she had her own office up on ten-deck, which was only five doors down from her own cabin. She said something he couldn’t hear, and he went in. She told him to sit down, and he did so. Before he could speak, he noticed a can of San Miguel on her desk. “It was on the floor of your cabin, Tom,” she said, looking right at him. Inside, he crumbled. He knew he was in a world of trouble. Momentarily, it occurred to him that they couldn’t prove anything unless they had actually seen him drink it, so it would be a trip to the bridge to breathalyse him, as was the normal procedure. With a needlepoint of horror he realised that he would still be over the limit from the beers he drank last night, with Donna…. My God might they have searched her cabin too? Might they have found her stash of marijuana? “You left your door open, and I saw it as I walked past.” She informed him in her untraceable English accent.. He shrank into his seat, and realised that his career with the company had come to an abrupt and highly damaging end. “You realise that I’ll have to take you up to the bridge to have you breathalysed don’t you, Tom?” ‘He half muttered half nodded his reply. She didn’t move. He looked up in question, and she stared back at him for what seemed like a long time. Finally, she said, quietly, “Perhaps there is another way”. He brightened considerably, at the prospect of a telling off and a let off. She moved her head to one side, in a way that he had not seen her do before, and almost whispered, “Im not going to let this go Tom. You have been here for three months. You should know better than to be doing these things, but I’m not stupid Tom. I know these things happen, and I know that I cant stop them from happening, and that you will still drink on this ship, even if I sack one or two of you as I should do, as an example, as we both know I cant sack everybody. I don’t want to sack you. But I can’t let this go, so we’ve got a problem haven’t we?” She didn’t move one muscle in her face. Tom stared at her partly squinting, biting his lower lip softly, and completely confused by what this women was telling him. She continued, and the muscles in her face softened slightly, as she went on, “I’ll tell you a story, Tom. When I was about your age, I lived with my mother. She left me in charge of the house for two days, as she to Exeter for some reason. While she was gone, I found my father’s bottles of cider. He used to drink West Country cider quite a lot, out of those big stoneware bottles, and I wanted to try some. I liked it, and I got very drunk indeed. My mother came home unexpectedly, and found me drunk as a skunk on the living room sofa. She took my father’s strap, and whipped me sober with it. Didn’t take very long. I never touched alcohol for years after that.” Alarm bells began to ring in Tom’s head though he wasn’t sure why, as Brenda went on. “This is not the first time you’ve been drunk on here is it? Mouthwash and coffee will only get you so far. Ive smelt it on you a couple of times, but decided not to do anything about it. So now, I’m going to give you a choice. You can have the day to decide, and the decision rests entirely with you.” The alarm bells just got much louder. “You can either elect to quit, and ill write you up as a drinking on board, or I can punish you personally, just like my mother did to me”. Tom gaped. “I’m doing this as a personal favour to you, and I would not do this for anyone else, but in your case I think getting a record from this company, bearing in mind the career path you have chosen, is potentially very damaging. Then again, if you ask me to thrash you, then I will not go easy on you. Rest assured, it will be the thrashing of your life, should you choose to go that way…” Tom was having trouble breathing. The stirring in his boxer shorts, made him feel faint, and the whole room and conversation felt unreal. He would have expressed disbelief if he could speak. Brenda told him to come to her cabin at half past eleven that night, with his answer. He excused himself, and floated down the slewing corridor unable to believe what he had just been asked to do. At dinner Donna and Lisa both noticed that he seemed very detached, and was smoking at lot more than he usually did. Little did they know, he had made a decision. The day and evening crawled by, without Tom’s mind ever leaving his meeting with the Purser that night. At last, the final cabins were cleaned, and Tom went back to his cabin to get dressed for passenger embarkation. He removed all his clothes and stepped into the shower, almost embracing the hot water, and the steam as it bathed the sweat from his forehead. He washed his hair, and then lay back resting against the bathroom wall, letting the hot stream touch him all over, as he tried to forget his meeting with the Purser that night. He got out of the shower presently, dried himself with a large towel, and reached over to put on a CD. He put on his James CD, and listened to the album halfway through, during which he had a shave, put some gel in his hair, and splashed some Issey Miyake on his face and neck. Donning a new pair of black Calvin Klein boxer shorts, and then put on a freshly pressed white shirt, as the one he had been wearing all day was quite unwearable. The put his black trousers on, and a pair of thick black socks. He tied a careful knot in his Company tie, and straightened in his white collar, before finally putting on his navy blue waistcoat, and tiepin. He put on his safety shoes, and reached to turn off the CD player. As he turned to leave he caught sight of the album cover. James – Whiplash. Once he had finished the upper car deck embarkation duty he had been assigned that night, he walked stiffly to the lift, and went up nine storeys to the crew mess, where he made himself a roast beef and horseradish sandwich and a mug of tea, and sat down to watch the inanities of MTV on the crew Television. Donna sat down next to him for a few minutes then headed downstairs with a wink, and instructions to come to her cabin before he went to bed. He looked at his watch. Eleven Twenty four, dimly his G-shock told him. His stomach turned a somersault, and he felt himself begin to tremble, with a mixture of fear and excitement and something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He rose, with a lot more purpose than he felt, and began the short walk to Brenda’s cabin. With a feeling inside like a ice cold bucket of water, over his innards, he knocked. “Come in!” The voice was difficult to read. Was there anger there? Before he went in, he noticed that Ken, the Hotel Services Manager hadn’t picked up his clean laundry delivery from outside his door, which meant that he wasn’t in his cabin, which was the only adjoining one to Brenda’s. He went in to the room and found it to be easily twice the size of his own cabin, and the smell of women’s bodyspray, and of clean carpet both made themselves known to him. He sat down in a chair by her dressing table without being invited, and Brenda sat on her bed watching him. “So what’s it to be then Mr Hickey?” she asked him. He had to try really hard to open his mouth and utter the words that had been burning inside him like a hot coal. “I’d like to take the punishment from you….” He had meant to follow up with a detailed break down of his reasons for choosing this option, but he found his mouth had gone very dry. She looked at him for 30 seconds or more, before she nodded, ran a hand through her thick hair, and spoke once more. “As you wish. Understand, that you have made your choice, and you will take everything that I am about to give you, and you cannot default on it whatsoever. In other words, I shall not be gentle, and you will almost certainly regret choosing me, but you cannot go back on it now.” Tom nodded without looking directly at Brenda. He remained seated. She walked over to her small window, at the rain outside which beat unremitting on the pane of glass. “Tom? Were you ever thrashed by your parents?, I mean seriously?” Tom smiled slightly, and said, “No, never. I got a little slap now and again but….” “Well in that case ill explain what is going to happen. In a minute I am going to give you a strapping. You will receive it bent over the bed here, and if you straighten up it wont count and you get another as a penalty. Is that clear?” For the first time, he noticed a purpose creep into her voice. He also noticed that she wasn’t wearing her uniform, but a pair of black jeans, and a white blouse, which showed clearly through. She turned off the overhead light, and left on the tabletop lamp, which cast long shadows across the room. He ran his hand over his face and found he was sweating. He removed his hand, and looked at it. He was shaking. He was scared. He looked over to see Brenda walk purposefully over to the walk-in wardrobe and open the door. Hung up on a hook was a long leather belt. It was about four feet long, and a deep oily brown. She removed if from its hook and laid it across the bed. The buckle gleamed dully in the light. He could hear himself breathing more heavily than normal. “Take off your waistcoat, shirt, and shoes.” She said bluntly. Tom felt his knees move as he got out of his seat, though he had no recollection of asking them to get him to his feet. He stood and looked at Brenda Stafford. “Now please.” She said, without her eyes leaving his. He began to unbutton his shirt, and undo his belt. The leather of his own belt felt clammy, and hostile to him, and he felt his expression change as he swept it out it its belt hooks and hung it over the chair with his shirt. Suddenly, disturbingly, he was left in his trousers and socks. He became aware of how cold the room was, as he felt his nipples harden. His gaze returned to hers, and she spoke on cue. “Come here.” Her voice was emotionless, but full of the promise of. …something. He shuffled towards her. She gestured to the end of her bed. “Pull your trousers down”. Without looking up he did so. For the first time Brenda noticed the erection in Tom’s boxer shorts. As she looked, it grew, slowly but surely. He pulled his trousers down to his ankles, and stood facing Brenda, apparently unaware of his own excitement. “Bend over the bed “. Tom stayed still, silently. “Now, Tom.” She said firmly. Swallowing hard, he bent over the end of Brenda Stafford’s bed. He shut his eyes tightly. With a shock, he felt fingers in the waistband of his boxer shorts, and a thumb, guiding the elastic over his engorged member. He gasped, and opened his eyes. He felt his boxer shorts being pulled down to behind his knees, and then left alone. He moved his head over, across the bed sheet, to see Brenda pick up the strap. He shut his eyes again. Brenda picked up the strap, with reverence, and she ran her hand over the surface. The strap was an old one, the same that her mother had taken from her father’s wardrobe, and thrashed her with all those years ago. Since then she had oiled it and taken good care of it, as is only right with good leather. She had used it a few times since then, on her son, and she felt the same every time she picked it up. This was a truly awesome leather strap. The strap only ever came out for a beating. She or her father had never worn it. Thick, powerful, and malevolent, it commanded respect from her, and her son, and now Tom would learn to respect it. She got a good grasp of the buckle end, and doubled the other, tapering end into her grasp. She ran her other hand over the doubled leather, feeling the oil, and the hard leather. She positioned her footing so she was about a foot and half from Tom, and to his left hand side, at about forty-five degrees angle. Grimly, raised her arm, and felt the weight of the strap move her arm back, before she lashed it down with force, to land directly across the fullness of Tom’s naked rear end. Tom, felt a movement behind him, and heard a low whistle, as the belt hurtled down, then a very loud crack as it impacted. Then the pain hit Tom, and he exhaled all the breath in his lungs. His throat was as dry as parchment, though he didn’t notice. The pain was intense. A thick heavy burning came right across his bottom. He grimaced heavily, and saw the shadow on the wall change as Brenda raised the strap again. CRACK This one was lower down, right where the round of his bottom met the backs of his legs. An agonising pain flashed across his exposed buttocks, and he let out a whimper of pain. CRACK This one was between the two and truly agonising. He hissed, and bit his lip hard. CRACK The forth stroke landed on top of where the first landed, and Tom cried out in pain. That had hurt more than the other three. A metallic taste came into his mouth, and he screwed his eyes shut, and prayed for the flogging to end. The next five strokes were administered at 15-second intervals, and by the tenth he was crying openly, hot tears flowing down his hot face, dampening the bed sheet he rested his chin on. Each stroke was received with a jar, and he whipped his head back, with each, screaming out in pain with each one. Brenda was counting each lash as it landed, and by the time she got to twenty he had stopped throwing his head back and now was ramming his head into the bed sheet with each devastating visit of the belt. Brenda saw the damage clearly. Each lash left a livid red fading oblong shape on Tom’s naked bottom. The heat in his buttocks was clearly apparent, and each mark almost glowed at her in the dusky light. At twenty-three an even louder scream came from Tom, and he fell back onto his knees, almost unable to breath, his face contorted in agony. She gently nudged his head forward to get him to bend back over her bed. This he did, painfully slowly, and Brenda noticed to her dismay, that a thin line of blood had appeared at the bottom of the latest strap mark. She decided to make the next one his last. Twenty-Four. Two dozen. She raised the strap high above her head, and stepped into the blow, bringing the full force of her frame into the lash, which made Tom scream loudly, and cry between deep breaths of tortured air. “That’s it, now, Tom, its all over now.” She said softly, and turned away, hanging the strap up on the hook behind the door of her wardrobe. When she turned round, she saw that Tom had got up onto the bed, and was on his knees, leaning forward, crying earnestly into her pillows. Neither said a word for twenty minutes, as she stroked his hair, and told him how sorry she was about it all, but also that she thought he had made the right decision. Presently, Tom raised his head, and through red eyes, and a still bitten lip, he sat back on his haunches, slowly, and painfully. Brenda saw to her shock and deep satisfaction that he still had a huge erection. Without thinking about it, she knelt down on the floor, bringing her head level, and took him in her mouth, She heard his heavy breathing continue unabated, though he ran his fingers through her hair, as she took his shaft deep in her mouth, and teased the end of him with her tongue. She felt his thigh muscles tighten, and he gasped out loud once more, and his shaft seemed to jump in her mouth, and ribbons of come sluiced into her warm mouth, and breathed deeply in satisfaction, and swallowed everything. She felt her fingers undo her jeans and pull them down, remove them, and she laid down next to Tom on the bed, her eyes inviting him to explore her. He looked down at her, with a wide smile on his face. He put both little fingers in the waistband of her black knickers, and took them down as if they were lubricated. He knelt forward, and savoured her, open before him. Her feminine smell made him shut his eyes and breath deeply, as he plunged a forefinger inside her. She gasped, and moved herself harder onto his finger, and he opened his eyes to see her clitoris straining to emerge from its little hood, and a reflection of light off the moisture on his fingers, and inside her, right down her thighs. Brenda, without warning, got up, and got onto all fours. “Please” she implored, and he bit his lip once more, and moved forward, she threw her head back as she felt him push against her smallest hole. He wetted a finger and gently pushed inside her little hole. She gasped, and pushed her bottom towards him. He leant forward and ran his tongue over her most private spot, and she shuddered all over. Now, slick with his saliva, he pushed into her easily, and she moaned loudly, and he slowly thrust into her tiny back passage. She could feel his foreskin move back and forth inside her, and she came violently, shuddering and moaning loudly, and she pulled her self open for him, and stimulated her clitoris with her other hand as he moved up and down her. She pushed back into him with his forward stroke and each time she felt him go deeper and deeper until she felt so unbelievably filled. Without warning, he sharply thrust into her and grunted once, as he filled her up with great floods of his hot fluid. As he put his hand on the door handle to leave, she spoke to him. “When I said please, I meant I wanted you to strap me, give me a thrashing like I gave you….” Tom smiled, and replied with a grin, “Well you’ve got all day tomorrow to think about your choice. I’ll be back at half past eleven tomorrow night. You have a choice. I can either write you up, for taking it on all fours, in the most personal of ways, or I can punish you myself….” She laughed. “Can’t I have a bit of both?”