Miriam Palace's arched eyebrows caught the gaze of Marcella Valentine, who shrugged in response.

They observed as Miriam's cousin, Paul Royalton, endured his fourth bare-assed walloping of the evening--like the first one it was being administered by Brittany Symington, his one-time girlfriend, with a vengeance.

Miriam had dished out Paul's second spanking with a wooden spoon and Marcella, who in earlier days had babysat the other three, had delivered the third with her fearsome hairbrush, but those had merely been sound fanny-whackings with undercurrents of deep affection. They had produced yelps and squirms, well-reddened boyish buttcheeks and eventually a few trickling tears, but that was all--they were farewell ceremonies.

Brittany's assaults on Paul's supporter-framed naked hindquarters, the first with her doubled-over thick leather belt and the ongoing one with her hardwood racketball paddle while her victim was pinned over her left thigh, seemed quite different in tone. The strapping had lasted for over ten minutes while the paddling was approaching the twelve-minute mark, Brittany continuing steadfast as she vehemently cracked her implement's flat striking surface against her ex-boyfriend's glowing, magenta-hued southern hemispheres.

"Brittie, stop!" Miriam finally interceded at the fifteen-minute mark. "Enough already, this is supposed to be a friendly good-bye."

Her face flushed, the younger woman halted the spanking. "Sure, Miriam, I was just having...one final fling, spankwise."

"What do you mean?" Marcella asked while helping Paul, blubbering helplessly, to his feet.

"I've given up the lifestyle," the pretty brunette announced.

"Luh-uhhh-ifestuh-style?" Paul gingerly pulled up his sweatpants.

"Spanking," his one-time sweetheart explained. "Now that I'm married, I won't be delivering any more butt-blisterings--Jasper doesn't believe in marital punishments."

Miriam sniffed. "No, I wouldn't figure he would--at least not you walloping him."

"Not the reverse either," Brittany insisted, "Although Jasper wears the pants in our household."

The other three were momentarily speechless, each wordlessly sharing similar thoughts: Brittany had been extremely interested in spanking, especially from the administering side, ever since they'd known her. She'd also always been strong-willed and quite independent, making the marriage to her boorish, domineering husband a month earlier quite surprising.

"Nuh-No more spah-spanking?" Rubbing the seat of his sweats, Paul felt as though Brittany had just applied her future lifetime's worth of smacks to his bare derriere.

The next day, during 500-mile drive to the city where he had two job interviews scheduled, Paul shifted uncomfortably on his prickling-warm behind and pondered Brittany's decision. He would be starting over himself, presuming he found the employment he was seeking, in a new location. He'd been subject to regular bare-bottomed chastisements, from various females, throughout the past decade--but that life was over.

Could he truly leave the spanking lifestyle?

Two days later, chatting with a postdoctoral sociology student at the university, Paul confronted that issue.

"It's called the Spenser Spanking Plan," the beautiful young woman informed him. "I'm doing research on marital relationships in the early twentieth century, but this idea of domestic discipline strikes me as...just childishly ridiculous."

Shrugging, he smiled at Barbara Evangell. "I agree completely..."

{The End}