"Scared You Might Like It?"

All characters are 18+.

...

Grace Lin had only lived in her London flat for a few days -- and she was already regretting it.

Every evening, it seemed, through the unpleasantly thin walls she'd hear the same noises. The sound of a squealing child -- whimpers, ones of pain not fear, and muffled murmurs of castigation. Whatever was happening in the neighbouring flat, it was intensely distracting to say the least, and Grace could do without it. She always came home overtired and stressed, especially now that her new study-buddy had fully proven herself to be an overbearing arsehole, and the last thing she needed was that particular soundtrack. Whatever it was.

One evening, Grace was late from university -- the library printers were relentless in their ability to break -- and the moment she stepped, half-dead, off the bus, dread seeped into her stomach like black tar that she'd have to sit and listen to that once again. She didn't even own headphones so that she might block it out. It was all she could think about as she walked past the park to her flat, averting her eyes as a group of boys no older than sixteen watched her pass. She didn't understand why they did that. She wasn't anything to look at -- shorter than most, a bit chubby, with raven-black hair and a pale, shy, round face. At least that was how she felt.

Once sat at her sofa, trying to fight off the rushing embrace of sleep lest she become the type of person who slept and worked and did nothing else, Grace's ears focused and scanned but heard nothing. For a moment. And then it came again. The whimpering child, coming and going in a regular rhythm, bookended by that same stern voice. Grace tried to eavesdrop, to tap into what was being said, but the walls were just thick enough to dilute the words into meaningless noise. She sighed, eyes closed, sinking into her cheap Ikea sofa. Frustration built up inside her.

"Fuck it," Grace hissed, getting to her feet and practically stomping to the front door. She walked down the dusty, poorly lit corridor, and to the neighbour's front door. A little plastic 33 was bolted above the peephole. Behind the door, she sensed movement -- and as she did, her anger faded and she became very aware of what her tiredness had pushed her to do.

"Wait..." she thought, regret suddenly erupting inside her now clarity of thought had arrived. She forgot all about giving the neighbour a piece of her mind. Her natural shyness always found a way to win. "What am I doing?!"

The door swung open -- Grace was greeted by the raised eyebrows of a young-ish woman, maybe late thirties, with dirty blonde hair, pursed lips, and crinkly blue eyes.

"Hello?" she asked, expectantly. Her voice was higher than Grace expected -- and friendlier.

"Hi, I'm really sorry to bother you," mumbled Grace, trying and failing to keep eye contact. The woman just stared at her. "But I live next door and I just wanted to... I guess... talk to you about something that's been bothering me."

"Bothering you?" The woman's eyebrows lowered. "What do you mean?"

"Well, every now and then, I hear these noises through the wall -- it sounds like a girl crying or something?" The woman's face fell and, at once, panic flooded into Grace's system. She really wasn't one for confrontation -- so it was a good thing she'd come here to provoke it! "I'm sure it's nothing! But I just wanted to check everything is okay!"

"Well..." The woman closed her eyes -- then, to Grace's surprise, started laughing. It was almost a nervous laugh, the laugh of a child being caught in a misdeed, and she glanced both ways down the corridor as she did. "Tell you what -- come inside and we'll talk. This isn't one for prying ears." She stepped back and gestured for Grace to come inside -- far too meek to say no, Grace obeyed, almost shuffling into the woman's flat.

"Okay," she mumbled.

"I'm Klare, by the way," the neighbour said as she turned to lead Grace between white walls into a living area; it was much better decorated than Grace's lacklustre place. It even had one of those 'Home Is Where The Heart Is' signs. "With a K -- it's Swedish."

"I'm Grace," said Grace, because she was called Grace.

"I'm sorry I haven't been more of a neighbour," said Klare, "I really need to get better used to communal living."

"Oh, it's okay," Grace replied, "this is my first time living away from home."

"I thought you looked young. How old're you?"

"Twenty-two," Grace mumbled, as if this admission somehow made her weaker, and Klare nodded.

"Come sit down," she said, gesturing to the mauve velvet sofa. "Can I make you a tea?"

"Um..." Be polite, Grace told herself. "Yes, please, if you're having one."

"I'm always having one," said Klare with a smile.

While Klare vanished to the adjoining kitchen, Grace sat on the sofa and looked around, trying to get a grasp of the mood in this place and having not the slightest idea. She regretted ever coming near the front door -- not because Klare seemed anything other than perfectly pleasant, but because she knew how she could be. Talking to other human beings wasn't exactly her thing -- as Klare, she was sure, would soon find out.

Klare returned, holding a tray with two sturdy mugs of tea, and put them on the glass coffee table. Grace thanked her, and Klare moved to sit beside her.

"What you've been hearing is my daughter," she said as she sat down, tea cradled in hand, steam dancing from the mug towards the ceiling.

"Your daughter?"

"Esther. She's thirteen -- we moved here to be closer to my sister after my husband left me."

"Oh," said Grace, unsure what to say. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be -- he's a cunt." She smiled and Grace couldn't help but smile back.

"But why've I been hearing her make those noises?" asked Grace.

"I'm quite a traditional person and she's a quite unruly child." At once, the penny dropped for Grace.

"Oh."

"Yes." Klare grinned at the sight of Grace turning just a little pinker around the cheeks.

"You've been..." She didn't finish her sentence -- just nodded.

"Spanking her?"

"Yeah." Grace looked away and towards the window. Two magpies balanced on an electrical cable.

"Everything okay?" asked Klare.

"Yes," said Grace, quickly. The answer seemed so obvious that she felt stupid for not thinking of it herself -- but, then, she was an innocent sort of person. She was still a virgin, even, to the continued bemusement of her friends. "Sorry. I just didn't realise and now I'm being awkward."

"You're not being awkward," Klare laughed. "Some of my friends were quite shocked when I told them I spank my daughter. But I'm sorry you had to overhear any of it."

"Yeah..." Grace mumbled. "It's sort of outside my experience so I guess it bothered me."

"Well, her bedroom must adjoin your living room," said Klare, "so I should have realised spanking her in here might affect a neighbour. I'll make sure it happens in here from now on."

"Thanks," said Grace -- she realised she hadn't yet touched her tea, which encouragingly smelled of jasmine, so she picked it up with just a little too much eagerness. A drop spilt onto her jeans and she grimaced at the pain. Klare didn't seem to notice -- she was too busy studying Grace with a strange curiosity.

"Did your parents never spank you?" she asked, suddenly.

"Of course not!" Grace exclaimed -- then regretted. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean because it's wrong... it would just be the opposite of them. They're very... non-traditional people. And you don't get that a lot with Chinese parents."

"It's okay -- I understand," said Klare with a reassuring smile. "But if you've no experience yourself then I can see how it'd come as a shock."

"Yeah," agreed Grace. The tea was just starting to cool enough to be bearable -- she thought to mention her gratitude that it was jasmine, but thought better of it. Klare might think she was being accused of only choosing it because Grace was Asian and that could open a whole can of worms she'd prefer to avoid. "Do you think it helps?"

"With her behaviour?" Grace nodded. "I'm not sure. I've only started doing it in the past week."

"Oh..." Grace thought for a moment. "What day, specifically?"

"Sunday, why?" Grace smiled.

"That's when I moved in. Funny coincidence."

"Quite," sniggered Klare. "I was at my wit's end so I resorted to quite... tough measures. Hopefully it gets through to her."

"Hopefully."

"And if it does, you won't need to keep coming round to complain!"

"I wasn't..." Grace's defensive reaction was disarmed by Klare's smile. "I wasn't complaining, per se, I was just worried."

"Well, that's cause you're a good egg." Klare patted her shoulder and something indefinable, but small, stirred like an awakening animal in Grace's stomach. "Excuse me one moment." Klare rose and vanished from the living room.

When she returned, presumably from the bathroom or something to do with Esther, for the first time Grace noticed how red her right palm was. She wondered if it was from the hot mug or from the discipline. And she wondered what it was like.

"How do you do it?" Grace asked.

"What do you mean?" Klare replied, as she sat back down, the sofa cushions sinking so low that Grace had to adjust lest she fall into her host.

"Well, when you... you know, when you spank her."

"Oh, well, I thought about using a paddle or a cane but then I remembered I'm not a medieval torturer." They both laughed -- Grace a little more nervously. "No; I just do it OTK."

"OTK?" Grace tipped her head.

"Over the knee." Grace nodded as if this was the most normal conversation in the world. She made a mental note to finish her tea and get out of there -- but it was still too hot to do anything with but sip. "It's what the websites recommended."

"I didn't know there were websites," said Grace, thoughtfully. What was this strange excitement coming over her?

"Oh, thousands," laughed Klare, "as I've learned in my research. In the end it seemed the simplest option was the best. And also the one that didn't involve shelling out for a bloody riding crop."

"That might have been a touch cruel," sniggered Grace.

"Possibly," said Klare, with a knowing smile. "And if she sorts out her behaviour there's no risk of it."

"Well," added Grace, "if I ever have kids I'll have to remember your tactics. May I be excused?"

"You may."

Grace tried to hurry to the bathroom without looking like she was hurrying -- while there, just for a moment, a pang of curiosity overtook her. Facing the full-length mirror, she twisted to examine her bottom, plump and safe in her dark jeans, and tried to imagine a hand coming down on it. It was hard, she found, to visualise. When she returned, she found Klare sitting back with a leg crossed.

"I should probably head off," Grace said, "but thank you so much for having me and listening to me. I really appreciate it."

"It was no problem," Klare replied, "thank you for being the first person in the world I can discuss these things with and not feel like I'm being judged."

"Oh," laughed Grace, "no problem. I guess I just feel curious more than anything."

"Oh?"

"Yeah -- what with never being spanked myself and everything. I almost wish I was; just so I'd have more to say to you about it."

"Well..." Klare looked away, "all you have to do is ask, and I'll give you a spanking."

"Sorry?" Grace felt her face flush.

"You said you're curious. So why not?"

"Well..." Grace could think of a hundred reasons why not -- but she didn't seem to be saying them. Klare smiled.

"It's just you and I here. What're you afraid of? Scared you might like it?"

"Of course not!" Grace hissed, glancing at the doorway -- the only fear she had was that Esther's little form might appear, curious at the noises, and spy on them. She realised, at that, that she was already regarding Klare spanking her as a foregone conclusion.

"So," Klare repeated, jolting Grace from her thoughts, "why not?"

"Because that's crazy," Grace mumbled, crossing her arms, balling her hands into fists lest her trembling fingers be noticed. "Just cause I'm a bit curious doesn't mean I wanna actually do something like that."

"You know what I think?" Grace didn't answer -- just stared with big, brown eyes. "I think you do."

"You don't know that," Grace protested, her voice meek and soft, her face ablaze with embarrassment. She was most assuredly not an overtly sexual person -- but, she thought then, this wasn't sexual at all. Certainly not for Klare -- it was discipline. Intimate yes, primal definitely, but not done for her pleasure. Grace had never enjoyed the feeling of boy's eyes on her -- on her unsatisfactory breasts, her pudgy thighs, her just-a-bit-too-big butt -- but she felt some strange yearning to have Klare's eyes on her. Those eyes, she thought, might regard her with a different kind of electrochemistry.

The words were already leaving her lips.

"If I said yes," Grace mumbled, unable to make eye contact, knowing the door was firmly open and beyond closing, "what would happen?"

"Well," said Klare, cool as a cucumber while Grace fidgeted with her hands, "when I punish Esther, what I normally do is have her remove her underwear, then take her over my lap, and then smack her bum twenty times. Ten strikes for each cheek. Then it's corner time with her bare bum on show, and then I send her to bed."

"Oh." Grace's face felt hot as what she was signing up for dawned on her. And yet she still wasn't saying no. "That's a lot."

"If it's too much then I understand," said Klare, shrugging. "But if you want to know what it's really like, then that's what it'll be like."

"It's just..." Grace sniffed. "I'm a bit self-conscious, like, about my body, and I don't know if I'm ready for something like that."

"You might thank yourself later," replied Klare.

"Won't Esther hear?"

"She should be asleep by now -- but you'll just have to keep quiet regardless, won't you?"

"Well..." Grace took a deep breath, hoping like hell that tiredness hadn't rewritten her brain and she'd be flooded with regret tomorrow. "Maybe I could try it, a little, just to see?"

"Good girl." Something crackled inside Grace's tummy at the words. "Now then, remove your jeans and your underwear, please."

"Oh," mumbled Grace, a thunderclap of anxiety sounding in her tummy. "Really?"

"I told you what it'd be like -- no use acting surprised."

"I..." Grace's mouth felt dry. Her face hot. Her legs were jelly. And all the while, Klare just watched her expectantly -- like a stern mother. "Okay. I'll do it."

Klare's eyes burning into her, Grace unbuttoned her jeans and, thumbs hooked under the waistband at her hips, tugged them down to her knees. She felt like crying -- but in a good way. Did that make sense? It certainly didn't do her.

"My underwear too?" Grace mumbled.

"That's what I said, wasn't it?" The girl, feeling reduced in age by so many years, shivered. Why had this fever come over her so easily? So many things must lie just below her skin, she thought, ready to burst forth if she just scratched a little. Grace dug her thumbs into her underwear -- a dark blue thong she felt desperately embarrassed to be seen in -- just as she had with her jeans, pulling the thin fabric away from her skin, before peeling them down as quickly as she could. Though her knees pressed almost painfully against each other, nothing hid her girlhood from Klare's view, and Grace felt a burst of red-hot embarrassment at her nakedness. She hoped she wouldn't be judged for her messy black pubic hair and, yet, didn't cover herself -- maybe she was basking in the feeling or maybe she didn't want to admit to her embarrassment by shielding herself from view. Klare's eyes, though, never wandered south from Grace's own. Her trust, so strangely natural, felt vindicated.

"Good girl," said Klare smoothly, so smoothly that Grace, still on the verge of tears, shivered again. "Now come here and lay over my lap."

"Okay," whimpered Grace, her voice so soft it was barely perceptible, and, hobbled by her jeans around her knees, she took the few steps towards Klare.

Once at Klare's side, her host reached for Grace's wrist and pulled her closer. Grace squeaked in surprise but let herself be taken -- she fell forward as Klare yanked her, and found herself lying over this strange woman's lap with her bare bottom on show. Staring down at Klare's living room carpet, feeling a hand holding her further hip to fasten her, shock at the surreality of her situation finally came over Grace. She felt a momentary lapse, an urge to get up and run away, but she insisted to herself the same thing over and over -- trust her. Just trust her. You might thank yourself later.

Klare's hand rested on Grace's bottom, which tensed and broke into goosebumps, and Grace thought about apologising for how gross her body was -- but held it in.

"Now then, young lady," Klare murmured. "I want you to tell me what's going to happen to you."

"Uh..." Grace found it hard to get any words out at all -- let alone the appropriate ones. Her hands reached out to push against the carpet, keeping herself steadied, her mind hyper-focused on the feeling of her naked butt and the bare hand on it. "I'm gonna get spanked."

"And why?"

"For being bad." Grace hoped that was a good enough answer -- as no reply came, it seemed to be good enough.

Grace, for some reason, had expected the spanking to start painless and slowly become worse -- instead, the very first smack sent a sting of pain rolling down her nearer cheek and down her thigh. Grace whined, her toes curled, as Klare's fingers in the hand restraining her dug into her hip.

"This is what happens to bad girls," Klare muttered matter-of-factly, another strike finding Grace's other cheek. Grace whimpered some noise of agreement, both hands now clasped over her mouth to keep locked away as many revealing noises as possible. Yet, as smack after smack met her vulnerable, pale little bottom, she still found herself whimpering louder and louder into her hands. Her feet started to kick as the pain stopped fading and just stayed, everpresent, splashed across her rear. The embarrassment of her exposure mixed with the pain of the spanking into something else, something new... something perfect.

"You don't like that, do you?" cooed Klare. Grace, who had already lost track of how many spanks had fallen on her, just shook her head wildly. Her hair had fallen over her eyes and she'd stopped caring about how loud she was getting. All she could think about were the twin fires burning on her skin and in her mind -- nothing else, not even the studying that consumed her life, mattered. It felt wonderful.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Grace begged breathlessly, not even meaning to drift into character but doing it anyway, her hands muffling her voice but not enough for it to be missed.

"It's a bit too late for that," sighed Klare -- another strike hit her upper thigh and the sting rocketed across Grace's skin. She wailed again and, then, the tears came -- she felt them break from her eyes and fall on the carpet. The sobbing followed -- yet Klare didn't let up.

When the final spank came and nothing filled the air except Grace's pathetic, laboured sobs, the silence was a surprise. She just lay there, no longer caring about her nudity, her bared rear on fire, Klare's hand stroking her back.

"You did very well," whispered Klare -- and, as she said it, the pain seemed to fade.

"Thank you," Grace whispered back.

"You can stand now."

"I'd prefer to stay here," Grace replied, her voice still so soft as she fought off the last of the sobs, "just for a second."

"Okay," said Klare reassuringly, her hand leaving Grace's back to stroke her poor, raw bottom. "Such a pretty girl."

"Thank you." Grace shivered at the touch -- the praise felt like a glass of cold water after a hike.