When Did You Last Spank Your Secretary?

Some fool sent me an email with this title. Judging by the list of people it had been forwarded from it's a common office joke. Not that I work in a common office. I could have replied. I could have posted '4 years, three months and seven days.' It would have been true, but only partially true. And probably misunderstood. Doubtless there's some kind of joke in asking when did you first spank your secretary. Why? Some of us do it, and some of us don't. I can barely remember the details of the first time. I know that it was four years before the last. Eight years ago. I was forty-three then. I'd just made senior partner, and Catherine had been promoted from legal secretary to PA.

Catherine had been my regular secretary, but once I made senior partner she became the leader of the secretarial staff, a sergeant major to my commanding officer. Which was tough for her; she was 26 at the time, and many of the staff she was leading were older than her. It didn't seem to trouble her though, and she managed her team effectively. Within weeks she had all the structures in place that she wanted to make sure she could manage her new responsibilities – four secretaries, two typists, a receptionist, a cashier and an accounts clerk.

I know roughly how I started spanking her. It started as a joke. A joke about her new responsibilities, and how I retained my right to discipline my personal assistant as I saw fit. We'd flirted before, but not in any serious fashion. Maybe that day we were both conscious of our respective situations. She would make jokes about her marriage to a man who spent more time working on his motorbike than on her. She might smile about the accidental double entendre, but only with a touch of acidity. And in turn I would allude to my marriage to a woman who had staked out her ownership of the back bedroom and its single bed as soon as our second son had been born.

Until that first time, though, I'd seen the flirtation as being a sign of two people offering each other affectionate and good-humoured comfort. But that day, though, somehow a line was crossed. Somehow she interpreted my jocular manner as a sign of intention. Somehow she decided she wanted to cross that line too. So she ended up bent over my desk, tights and panties around her knees, receiving six tentative slaps on her buttocks. I didn't know what to do next, so left her there and went to sit in my armchair at the corner of the room. I can't honestly say I remembered her adjusting her dress or leaving the office.

Life can take you by surprise like that. Banal, I know, but true. How on earth did it happen? What did it mean? I thought of little else all weekend. I took the boys to rugby, and stood on the touchline, wondering what would have happened if I'd attempted sex with her. I couldn't close my mind to the picture of her, the curve of her buttocks, the line of her thighs, smooth and toned, pale but healthy. The pictures in my mind were super real, clearer and sharper than anything I've seen in real life.

Real life, of course, has a habit of getting in the way. Real life being a stint in the magistrates court on Monday morning, three summary cases, a bail application and anything else that needed a qualified duty solicitor. Throw in an emergency call to the county court for a matrimonial case gone bad, and you can safely say I wasn't easy to contact. And yes, I did get the irony that I was in the county court trying to sort out a warring couple who couldn't live together any more while wondering if I was going to have the chance to commit adultery with my PA.

On Tuesday I was back in the office, and alternately embarrassed and standoffish as I tried to deal with Catherine. Well, it was the reaction I thought was expected of me. So we barely talked all day. Wednesday was no better. Frankly, I felt like an ass. Catherine was polite, sweet natured and pleasant as ever. More pleasant than she had been for a while, if I'm honest. She was less introspective than previously and easier to talk to. Except that I was uneasy. Should I broach what had happened or act as if it had never happened? On Thursday I resolved to try and solve the situation. I did two short court appearances in the morning, then headed back to the office for a run of three interviews with clients. Effectively I wasn't going to be free till about three thirty. All through the interviews my mind was rehearsing things I might say to Catherine. None of them sounded sincere, or appropriate. And, as it proved, all the fretting and thinking was unnecessary.

Catherine brought my diary for Friday through, and put it on the desk. Between four and five there was a blank spot. I looked up at her. She looked away, as if there was something fascinating on the wall of the office. "I thought, after last week, you might want to keep the last hour free for staff discussions... so we can sort out any issues..." I was left, if not open mouthed, at least more than a little surprised. "So you think that, instead of letting things just happen, we need to structure those discussions a little more?" Her attention switched to the wall behind me, her gaze focussed above my head ."It's your decision obviously, but I thought it best to clear the time if it's required." And, oddly, we left it there. I knew I'd just been, if not propositioned, at least given a hint that what had passed between us hadn't been unacceptable.

My mind was in overtime that night.

You can't blame me. I was thinking about Catherine's apparent acceptance of what might happen. I was thinking about what might happen if someone came into the office. Except that it didn't happen. The conveyancing department on the ground floor stayed open till five on a Friday, but they were self sufficient. They didn't need any input from me. The family and crime units closed at lunch time on a Friday; I'd been praised by colleagues for my family friendly approach when I became senior partner, and now, it seemed I was to be the beneficiary. Just like the previous week, we'd have the top floor to ourselves.

Was I distracted all day Friday? My memory wants to say yes, that I spent all morning experiencing that slightly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. But it wouldn't be true. I was busy. Have you ever tried sorting out other people's marriages when you're feeling as if your own marriage, your own life is teetering on the edge of the precipice? If I had sex with Catherine would I be able to go home and pretend to my wife? Or would Catherine be able to pretend to her husband?

I was glad that my last three clients of the morning were all crime cases. I specialize in what people glibly call white collar crime. I'm the bent accounts clerk's friend according to colleagues, who understand that what I really do is try and help people who become over attached to other people's property while working for them. Mainly it's about trying to find ways to keep them out of prison; you're more likely to get imprisoned for stealing from your employer than from an elderly woman's handbag. I have no sympathy for my clients, but I have a job to make sure the courts are proportionate and sensible in the sentences they give. It distracted me from my worries about how to deal with Catherine. It was reassuring as well. All I'd wanted to be, from childhood, was a solicitor. It was good to know, despite my preoccupations, that I still wanted to be a good solicitor.

It seems funny to me now, looking back, thinking about my worrying about where I should sit. On the sofa, to look casual? Behind the desk, to give me some protection and authority? Or in the armchair?

Eventually I opted for the sofa. I composed myself, setting my expression. Cool, in control, non committal. Part of me expected Catherine to tell me she was going to resign, or report me to the Law Society. So I sat and waited for her to speak. While I waited my eyes made an inventory of her. Knee length skirt, dark blue, with a pinstripe. White blouse, with a shirt collar, neatly buttoned. Collar length brown hair with thin highlights of gold and henna red that I hadn't noticed before. A steady gaze that didn't quite challenge my eyes, but didn't shy away either. Neat shoes with a square, probably two inch heel. Black tights or stockings. I assumed tights.

She wasn't looking to complain or recriminate. She was, in her own words, expecting me to spank her again. Or, as she put it "Since I didn't complain I thought you'd expect to be able to spank me whenever you want..." So I did. I moved to the centre of the sofa, and laid her across my lap. I pulled her skirt up, and uncovered her bottom, Given time, and her consent, I took care to pull her tights and panties off. After six spanks, thee on each cheek, I tentatively slipped my finger between her thighs to stroke her pussy. My finger barely grazed the outer edge of her lips. She responded though, by opening her legs a little, bearing in mind her position lying across my lap, and used her feet against the arm of the sofa to push her hips up.

So did I explore her pussy more? Not immediately. I went back to spanking her again. Trying to keep the blows to a rhythm and an even level, but failing as I struggled with my own breathlessness. I was more turned on than I considered possible. After the twentieth slap of my hand on her buttocks, turning pink under the impacts, she spoke. "I can feel your hardon against me." I could feel her hip resting against my erection as well. We both knew where it was going to lead. She ended up sitting astride me, head bowed against my shoulder, my cock inside her, my hand son her buttocks, not to smack her but to lift her up and down on me. I cam inside her, squeezing her against me with my arms, holding her in place until the pulses running through my erection had ceased.

We talked afterwards, still with a sense of being boss and secretary, not lovers. We discussed how we could work together, and what we could do. She was happy with her role, with being the subject of my desire. We both knew the risks we ran, and accepted the limits our relationships placed on us. So we agreed that we would be restricted to her giving me a blowjob Monday to Thursday, and on Fridays I could use her in any way that didn't leave marks her husband might notice.

That lasted for a year.

On the anniversary of her first spanking I gave her the keys to a flat I'd bought on the fringes of Gosforth. Allegedly an investment, it was a place where we could have sex more freely. She could tell her husband she was going for a drink after work, and we could meet in a place where I could strip her and have her in a bed, her hands tied to the IKEA headboard or her body bent over a straight backed kitchen chair. So what if the wardrobes only contained basques, corsets and harnesses?

Eighteen months after that first spanking her husband went to the Isle of Man TT, and I could use my belt and a riding crop on her, knowing he wouldn't return for a week. Five months after that she told her husband she was going on a girls weekend to Blackpool. We never left the cottage I took her to in the Lake District, and she never dressed beyond a corset and a collar she wore for the first time.

The fact that I loved her was beyond question. Neither of us ever mentioned it though. I watched and complimented as she changed her personal style; square heels giving way to sharper, higher, sexier stilettos. Tights banished for hold up stockings or stockings attached to a basque or corset. Trousers abandoned completely. Plain cotton pants replaced by thongs and g strings. Her navel pierced with a diamond stud on what I thought of as our third anniversary.

And with all the personal changes, a relentless pursuit of personal improvement, so that she could act as a legal executive when the company needed it. I felt a keen sense that I was losing her, that she was getting ready to fly out into the world and away from me.

Four years, three months and seven days ago she came into my office on a Friday afternoon; I'd been discussing with colleagues the new office acommmodation we needed as the company had grown. We were considering a move to a purpose built office block around the corner from our original location. Catherine didn't want to talk about that though. She wanted to tell me she had a job offer from a larger firm in Sunderland, an offer that, in financial terms she couldn't refuse. It would mean she'd be independent of her husband, and free to leave him and buy her own home. She wanted to know if we could still have a relationship if she left. She admitted she'd miss the sex, the sense of knowing who and what she was if we were no longer lovers. And she wanted me to spank her in the office one last time.

So I did. I bent her over the arm of the sofa, and spanked her, hard. And buggered her, a taste we'd acquired about three years into this lopsided, desperate affair. And then she left, walking out of the door with her resignation letter on my desk.

And I went home to my lonely bed, the other side of the wall from my wife, and didn't sleep.

Next morning I phoned her mobile; she knew my number and could choose whether to answer or not. She answered. She'd told her husband, and he'd barely reacted. I offered her the use of the flat as long as she needed it. She asked if I was trying to keep her where I could have her, but with a hint of a laugh in her voice. I denied it, but of course I'd thought it.

Then I sat in my house, surrounded by possessions I hadn't chosen, and wondered what to do.

It was three hours before my wife came home from shopping, arms laden with carrier bags. I told her my decision, that I was leaving. She, in turn, promised to ruin me. Nine months later, we agreed on a divorce settlement that didn't ruin me, but left her with a home and enough money to keep her and the boys.

They were a long nine months. Catherine used the flat only briefly before buying herself a small house in North Shields, convenient for her daily commute through the tunnel. We met occasionally professionally, and once a week we found time for sex. Unsatisfactory sex, I might add. It was as if we'd been shaken to the core by the upheavals, and couldn't work out how to be with each other without the restrictions of a surreptitious affair.

About two weeks after my divorce was settled I said all that to Catherine. Granted, I was drunk, and emotional, but it felt as if I'd lanced a growth on my soul. And for the first time in four years I told her I loved her. And in return she went to the toy box in the bottom of the wardrobe, took out the collar that we'd sporadically used to restrict her movement, and gave it to me to put on her. And she talked.

I was guilty of not reading the signs, of not understanding her sexuality. She wasn't just someone who wanted to be beaten and fucked, she wanted to be submissive. Completely sexually submisssive. And I'd just thought it was about my desires. I hadn't even acknowledged that she had desires too.

The four years since have been good to us. We live together now, in a house on the seafront in Tynemouth. My sons have the use of the granny flat in the basement, when they need it. We have three bedrooms on the first floor, more than we need, except for when we have friends to visit. We have a circle of friends who love our house, who love our invitations to come to the house and share sex with us. And on the second floor we have an attic room with views across the north pier at the mouth off the Tyne, a view Catherine looks out over when I tie her wrists to one of the exposed beams and beat her. Our relationship has changed, so so much. When I beat her now I'm worried not about whether she is marked, but only about not making her so uncomfortable that she can't sit at her desk the next day. I look at her body as she walks around the house, naked whenever possible, jewelled studs marking out not only navel but her nipples and her clit, the letter G, my initial, branded on her right hip.

It may be four years seven months and three days since I last spanked my secretary, but tonight I will whip the woman who used to be my secretary, then watch her have sex with the three men who will have been watching. And then, aided by Viagra and a passion for her that I cannot ever express in words, I will take her to bed and use her for my pleasure until the dawn light is breaking through the curtains of our east facing bedroom window.

And if it hadn't been for a stupid email I would never have written this down. Which would be wrong, since she should read this and understand.