Daddies Brat

Julia walked slowly to her car. The leather seats were hot from the sun and she was all too aware of her tender cheeks and the slippery cream Richard had smothered over them.

When Julia arrived back at the cottage she threw her bag straight on the table and headed upstairs to where she’d set up her laptop for writing.

Julia read what little of the draft of her new novel she’d completed. She could see more clearly than ever that it was abject and turgid. Suddenly, Julia was bursting with ideas. She deleted the draft without a second thought and started afresh. Julia began to type: ‘The aimless journey. A novel by Julia Jenkinson.’

JULIA’S CLEANING

‘No! I’m not some erotic fiction writer,’ Julia protested.

‘Well, I didn’t mean that in the pejorative!’ Richard sounded a little defensive, but Julia could hear from his tone that he was teasing her.

‘No, it’s a story of a lost soul who takes a much longer aimless train journey than our recent little jaunt. There are some sexual elements to the story, though they are very much secondary. I’m exploring the idea that when we embrace our directionless reality, we can discover our true direction. I suppose it’s an anti “just-do-it” manifesto if you like.’

‘”Just do it!” Now that’s a rather good line. You should be in advertising.’ Richard was teasing her again. Julia couldn’t help but be a little peeved. She HAD been in advertising and didn’t like people to know that. She was not about to tell Richard.Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

‘So!’ Richard wanted to get to more practical matters, ‘you finished a first draft of your book in a little over three days?!’

‘Yes, well, and quite a portion of the nights, too!’ Julia was fishing for praise.

‘Seems like you don’t need any more assistance from me.’ His statement was matter-of-fact. She wished there’d been a least a note of sadness from him at such a prospect.

‘No!’ Not for the first time, Julia sounded a little desperate in responding to Richard. ‘You see, in my frenzy, I’ve been neglecting the gym, and the cottage is a bomb site. That’s not good. I feel I need help with that.’

‘Well, it’s somewhat understandable to neglect things a little when you’re so inspired. But maintaining balance is very important. So, you’d like my assistance with regaining that balance?’

There was a long pause. In truth, Julia had vastly overstated her slovenliness to create a reason to see Richard again. Sure, she’d skipped the gym once, but who doesn’t, now and then? The cottage was quite tidy too. Yes, she had worked in a frenzy, but she knew better than to avoid breaks altogether and found domestic chores were an excellent way to clear her head for more writing. Glancing around the tidy cottage, Julia felt a little naughty in her white lie. She cleared her throat.

‘Yes. Please, Sir.’

‘Very well, Miss Jenkinson.’ He sounded kind and warm, but Julia was both electrified and frustrated. Electrified by the thought of being spanked, and hopefully fucked, by him once again; electrified and frustrated in equal measure by her demotion back to ‘Miss’ Jenkinson.

‘I hope you’re good with a duster, Sir?’ Julia was feeling cheeky. She was trying to lighten the mood and to goad Richard.

‘Be careful what you wish for, young lady. The handle of the right sort of feather duster can make for rather a good cane.’

Julia felt the cheeks of her bottom tighten in reflex at Richard’s mention of caning. There was just such a feather duster in the cottage, a quality one, with real ostrich feathers and a long, smooth, springy wooden handle. As much as she dreaded the idea of a caning, Julia found that she couldn’t resist describing the feather duster in detail to him.

‘It sounds like that could be very useful. If I feel you deserve it.’ Richard left the potential of a caning hanging in an enticing fog of uncertainty.

Julia hadn’t been caned since she was sixteen and studying at a dreadful Catholic boarding school, dispatched there by her parents while her father was posted abroad with her mother in tow. The nuns were indifferent to her sense of abandonment. She’d hated their strict, detached teaching style and their cold, self-assured authority. Julia instinctively tried to subvert them.

She’d planned her revenge on the cruel nuns with some creativity and precision. Julia snuck into the laundry late at night when, so she’d discovered, the nuns’ had their blue habits laundered. She stopped the machine mid-flow, tied the sodden habits in knots, and added large volumes of beach to the cycle. Julia was buzzing with the thought of the nuns in tie-dyed habits as she climbed out of the window to avoid using the corridor. The door to the laundry was unglazed. There was too much risk she’d be caught in her getaway by a patrolling nun if she’d simply retraced her steps.

Unfortunately, the window chosen for her escape was as old and rotten as the nuns. Thick layers of blue paint disguised the rot. The window gave way as the young Julia lowered herself to the ground. It betrayed her in what felt to be the noisiest and most dramatic fashion. Yet the fall proved to be just the start of the much fiercer drama of the nuns’ outrage and Julia’s very humiliating caning in front of the whole order. How was she to know that the blue color of the habits held religious significance?