Whipping Tom: Terror of the Milkmaid’s Bum – ebook

Excerpt

Besides pulling turnips and turnip greens from our fall garden patch, this past week Papa’s been hard at work laying in a big supply of kindling and firewood for the coming winter. Sticks and strips and chips of wood were scattered everywhere around the big stump he uses for his chopping block. As I wandered off the main trail down to the block, I spied one such flat strip that was about as thick and wide and long as the stick with which Mama used to rap the knuckles of my older brothers when she was learning them to read and write and figure. Mama’d never used it on me, though she’d learned me the same things as well. Neither Mama nor Papa was particularly in favor of us going to school under my grandfather, whom I hardly even remember, nor my uncle Lance or anyone else, so Mama had handled all our book learning personally from the volumes she heired from Grandfather Atwood. And no one could say she’d done a bad job.

Anyway, still irked and unable to do absolutely nothing while I waited on my gentleman caller, I picked up this wood strip and examined it—and immediately got a vivid, and provocative, reminder that an idle brain is the devil’s workshop just like Uncle Lance proclaims from the pulpit. The wood strip looked like something Whipping Tom would be curious to try out against some poor girl’s tender backside, and so I twisted my body around, held the strip in my right hand—and administered a solid TAP to the right side of the spot in question on my own body. Whether from the sensation itself or the daydream that accompanied it I felt my guts squirm, my heart thump, my quinny swell and moisten, and my legs begin to tremble. I tried out a harder tap, then still a harder one, then struck the cheek opposite, then that cheek again…

“Uh, good afternoon, Miss Margaret, I’m sorry I’ve not brought back your clothing but we still have some hope for success… what on earth?”

I gasped in utter horror. There stood Leonard at the spot where the trail forked off the main path toward the ridge to the woodpile. God only knew what, and how much, he’d just seen. I know my face and my hair had to match colors for a moment but I tried my best to—to—well, whatever I was trying my best to do to keep myself from looking and acting like an utter fool.

“Wh-where’s your horse?” I stammered.

“I took the stage from Hackney to St. Andrews,” he answered, his eyes still wide, “and got a room at the inn so your parents don’t have to worry where to bed me down tonight. I just now walked over the ridge. Uh… were you just SPANKING yourself?”

Now I looked down at the wood strip in my hand and my shame overcame me. I burst into tears, threw down the stick, and fled in the opposite direction, running deeper into the woods.

“Margaret! No! It’s all right! Don’t feel ashamed! I… I think I understand! Margaret! Please stop!”

He began to run after me and—well, not really knowing what else to do—I let him catch me though I was still sniffling a bit. He grasped me around the midsection, brought a fresh blush to my upper cheeks by planting a loud buss on the right nape of my neck, and murmured in my ear, “Please don’t feel shamed! This Whipping Tom madness has made me curious about—about—well, you know what about, too! And I’ve not been able to get my mind off you, either!”

I’m not sure whether it was the hilt of his dagger or something else, but I felt a poke through the fabric at the back of my dress of a blunt object, seemingly quite hard. And so I risked the welfare of my toby, and maybe even my maidenhead, a little by wriggling back against it, which gave Leonard a gasp of his own. He responded by cupping my duckies in his hands, and rubbing until my nipples were plainly visible inside my dress. “Oh… oh, my God,” I kept whispering, not even knowing what else to say.

“Margaret!” murmured Leonard again, directly into my ear, “You wouldn’t even believe how many young, spanked women—well, for that matter, not-so-young spanked women—I’ve seen in Hackney since I’ve last talked to you! There’ve been fifty-five attacks in total now since the tenth of October, and we’re not making any headway on the case at all! So far Whipping Tom’s been too clever to be fooled by a man in a woman’s garb, because he’s kept right on birching poor girls and we’ve never even been able to catch his trail. But… it’s just so deuced unsettling to listen to all the victims talk about what happened to them—and how much difference there be in the way they’ve reacted to the experience! Some are frighted out of all reason, most are angry and bitter and vengeful and I can’t blame them one bit for it, but there’s a few, I admit a VERY few, who actually seem to savor the memory of their attack. Some even enjoy talking about it and giggle over it and one or two actually express hope that Whipping Tom might come back to see them! They ‘like it rough,’ they say! So… if… well, if Whipping Tom’s made you all curious about spanking and being spanked, well… I must confess, I’m curious now too. I know I should have my face slapped for so saying, but…”

My chest was heaving and I was certain I’d fall into a swoon at any moment, though no forest girl I’d ever known was as prone to swooning as the daughters of the gentry were reputed to be. Mayhap it was all their corsets and stays, who could tell? “Leonard!” I managed to squeak out between gasps, “are we both daft? What’s… what’s wrong with us?”

He turned me round then and before I knew it, he’d locked his lips on mine in a fiery kiss, even hotter than the one I’d seen Papa give Mama the week before—or the one I’d given Raph Dodson whose arse kicked Papa back across the ridge. And now his hands left my duckies to put a firm grasp on my toby. By now I not only feared I’d swoon, but melt too.

He paused a moment after our hot, wet kiss to ponder my question, frowning slightly. I still had to gasp for air. “I don’t know what’s wrong with us,” he answered finally, “but why does anyone else have to know, in the first place? We can keep our private business to ourselves! Margaret, you were spanking yourself when I first saw you this afternoon. Would—would—” Here he had to pause to swallow and clear his throat. “Would you like some… uh… help?”

Hot and bothered as I was, I still had to giggle a little. “Leonard Rutledge!” I tittered. “Are you asking to spank me, like Whipping Tom?”

“I’d… I’d consider it an honor, Miss Sperrock,” he managed to croak, “but not like Whipping Tom. I’m asking your consent… and I’ll promise to be careful with you.”

My head swam. It was almost as if I were outside my own body looking down at the two of us. I couldn’t even believe what I answered, because I gave it no forethought whatsoever: “Well! Don’t be TOO careful! We want it to be fun, don’t we?” I giggled. I wish I could give word to what I felt at that moment. It was as if Leonard were Adam and I was Eve, both of us ready to take a big, juicy bite of succulent Forbidden Fruit and loving every moment of it. Except the Forbidden Fruit, in my mind’s eye at least, was more like a firm English cucumber than an apple, and it might be going in more spots than between my lips—although I wouldn’t rule that out. The very thought of offering my toby to Leonard for his punishment—or at least his concentrated attention—set my loins absolutely aflame.

Well, what can I say? We were both novices, and the experience wasn’t quite perfect for either of us. My knees and thighs were trembling so hard I almost lost my balance as I leaned forward, arched my back, took my hands and stretched my dresstail tight over my toby, and looked over my shoulder… and quite frankly, I thought my gentleman spanker was going to pass out before he ever struck me once! As it happened, he hit too high a few times but a good many of his blows landed exactly where they should, as Mama put it, on the fleshy parts of my back, and for the very first time in my life I experienced a spanking from a man who attracted me. Rather than having to ask him to stop, once or twice I had to ask, almost beg, him to continue! But when all was said and done my toby was stinging deliciously and the spanking stopped only when he suddenly spun me around, took my tingling buttocks into his hands again, squeezed hard, and lifted me off the ground to his eye level. Our mouths locked onto each other and our tongues played together in another hot kiss.

I doubt I’d have had the will to keep my maidenhead if our encounter had happened in the spring, summer, or even earlier in the fall. As it was, a chilly wind began to blow, and if that didn’t exactly cool mine and Leonard’s ardor for each other for some reason it reminded me that my father was apt to come looking for me if he happened to open our front door, call for me, and not get a reply. I’m unsure whether it was my imagination or not, but at that moment I thought for certain I heard a muffled “Nutmeg!”

I gasped and whispered to Leonard, “Sweetheart! Put me down! I think I just heard Papa call!”

“Margaret Sperrock, I want you so badly!” murmured Leonard in reply, sending cold chills up and down my back by kissing the nape of my neck again softly—and still rubbing and flexing his palms over my toby. I moaned—both in arousal and frustration.

“Leonard!” I hissed again, “Papa’ll kill you if he finds us like this! And he’s a forester, and I’ve no doubt that he knows how and where to hide bodies! Please! Come with me! Let’s go to the house and have dinner! It’s all my own cooking, you know.”

“I was doing MY own cooking just now,” he whispered back with a slight quaver to his voice, “and I’d LOVE to taste… oh, uh… I mean…” He blushed, and I couldn’t help giggling happily.

With a shuddering sigh, Leonard finally let me back down to my feet, put his arm around me, and began to walk me back to the woodpile, although he kept his right hand fastened to my toby as if his fingers were leeches! “Leonard!” I hissed again as I looked up at him in appeal, “if Papa sees where you’ve got your hand, we’re both in trouble! Please! I’ll—I’ll try to think of some way for us to have private time after our meal!”

“Is your toby still burning from the spanking?” he whispered as he tried to adjust his breeches with his other hand. For some reason he seemed to be inordinately concerned with his appearance in front.

“Yes, Master Rutledge!” I giggled, “I rather like calling you ‘Master,’ for some reason! Yes, it’s still stinging wonderfully! Thank you, sir!” He gently squeezed me again back there, I began to slow down hoping for another hot kiss—the woodpile was in sight now so we didn’t have much time—

“MARGARET!”

Leonard and I must have jumped at least a foot in the air. It was Papa, sure enough, and the only reasons he ever calls me by my full first name rather than one of his pet names for me is to introduce me formally to a guest at the house—or if he’s frightened, extremely annoyed, or both at the same time. My ears hadn’t been playing tricks on me, after all. I gulped. We’d had it now. I feared it’d take all the diplomacy, begging, and even tears that I could muster to keep Papa from using his big splay feet to kick my poor Leonard’s arse clear back to St. Andrews, if not all the way to Hackney. And when we arrived at the woodpile and saw him, standing at the fork of the path in the exact same spot Leonard had spied me spanking myself with the wood strip, his countenance was a far cry from the playful one I’d seen on him when he was sporting with Mama earlier. My heart sank.

        “Where’ve you two been?” he demanded with an intimidating frown as we approached. Leonard tightened his grip on my bum, I scowled at him and wiggled it slightly to remind him he’d better let go of it for the time being, and tried to work up my best, most innocent and engaging expression for Papa. At least Leonard caught the hint and relaxed his hand.