NOW
The aphorism that “you never forget your first” was one that had always bothered Bertie.
For one, which ‘first’ was it referring to? His first crush would have been on a classmate in grade school, but which classmate or even which year had been lost to his memory.
His first kiss was a dare in junior high. The kid who dared him was named Ken Jakes, but the girl in question? He couldn’t remember her, either.
Even the details of his first sexual experience were hard to recall. Her name had been Melissa, or maybe Tessa. A cute Goth girl he’d met in a Lit class back in university. She’d had a lip ring, he was sure.
But the one ‘first’ that he would never forget was Sophie Johnston. They’d worked for years as wait staff at the same restaurant, both in university and earning their first paychecks. They enjoyed competing for tips and they’d read King Rat together.
Sophie was the first woman who spanked him.
It had been playful – just playful – at first. They were friends, and friends shared things, up to and including some things they shouldn’t. Suffice to say that Sophie knew that Bertie enjoyed spanking his girlfriend, though she thought it unfair that the relationship only worked the one way. Taking a page from the book of Ken Jakes, she offered a challenge to Bertie. The stakes? Either he’d claim her tips at the end of the night, or she’d have him over her knee to experience what he’d been dishing out to Rachel.
When he lost the bet, he figured that she would slap him a few times on the seat of his pants and that would be all – even as the thought of being spanked, really spanked, by his longtime friend was beginning to appeal to him. After all, Sophie was a beautiful woman, and he’d been making excuses for years as to why they couldn’t be any more than friends.
It turned out that Sophie felt the same. Still, she would not spare him.
“Hail up, Bertie! How’ve you been doing?”
Bertie blinked. He’d been manning the till at the café, walking some of the trainees through their new duties. He hadn’t even seen her approaching the counter.
She was tall, taller than him and yet somehow still shorter than he remembered her. She still had that wide smile that had raked in tips during her time as a waitress, and shone so brightly amidst her ebony features. He could have sworn that her curves had been better defined, but it had been years and his own body had also lost some of the definition it had in his twenties.
Somewhere along the line, she’d stopped straightening her hair, and kept it short and natural. It suited her.
“Ayo, Bertie. Don’t you recognize me?”
How could he forget?
THEN
“It’s late. It’s empty. And it wouldn’t be good for your authority if the staff knew how you’ve been a very bad boy.”
His face burned with the words as he grappled with his buttons, fingers trembling. The words “bad boy” played in his head over again. She had to know what this was doing to him.
She did, and she whistled as his pants came off.
“Oh my. Is this turning you on, Bertie? I should have threatened to spank you years ago. Bend over!”
The employee locker room was tiny, but her voice echoed within it as if it were a concert hall. Bertie bent over the break table with a dim realization that by his own metaphor, a symphony was about to be played on his buttocks. The room was dark, but he could follow the sound of her heels as she took up position behind him.
A crescendo built. The movement was about to begin.
NOW
He set the cappuccino down on the table in front of her, breathing in the now all-too-familiar aroma of steamed milk. He hoped it would distract him, ground him into remembering where he was, when he was.
“I’ve been coming here awhile, actually,” Sophie was saying, “It’s been my little treat once a week after I drop Chris – that’s my son – off at daycare. Then one day I see the office door is open and who do I see inside?”
Bertie could guess. “I’m still wrapping my head around you having a son. You always told me you’d sooner have your tubes tied than ever have to change a diaper.”
“Ha!” Her laugh was still as it ever was, deep and loud enough to shake the table. “The things we say when we’re young and cocksure, right? I didn’t think I was going to go through with it when I found out I was pregnant, but Jahmar really stepped up. Now I can’t see my life without motherhood.”
She held up her phone, with a picture of her family as her display. It was at least a year old, with Chris still appearing as a wide-eyed toddler. Jahmar stood behind Sophie in the image, hugging her midsection. He looked to be almost a head shorter than his statuesque wife.
Bertie and Rachel hadn’t even discussed having kids of their own, and the time for that decision was probably past them – Rachel would be forty next December.
“So what have you been up to all these years, Bertie?”
THEN
He’d had a lifetime of fiction and fantasy to prepare for this moment. He’d heard how the force of impact would rock him, how the sting would be like a hundred fiery bees let loose on his backside. How the heat would seep from his sore cheeks and inflame new passions in his loins.
What he’d failed to infer from that flowery prose was that a spanking would hurt. She’d only slapped his ass maybe a dozen times, and he’d already started to second-guess whether he was kinky at all.
She said that she needed an honest answer to a question she had, but he was too preoccupied with his throbbing seat to pay attention. For his trouble, she yanked him off his footing and into her lap.
“Why didn’t you ask me out?”
He told her he didn’t know. She knew he was lying. The spanking continued.
NOW
He wasn’t sure how to read her expression. They’d been honest with each other in the past, and he admitted that the years following COVID had been rough on his relationship with Rachel, and that they’d sought couple’s counseling the year before.
“Did that work for you two?” Sophie asked, with an odd interest.
“I think so.”
She mumbled something under her breath that he didn’t catch.
“It’s been great catching up, Sophie, but I can’t leave my trainees for long. I’ll give you my number, and we can text sometime.”
He removed his own phone from his pocket, but Sophie laid a hand on the screen before he could unlock it.
“Bertie… do you still spank her?”
THEN
He’d thought he was feeling the full force of her palm through his briefs, but with his last layer of defense now pooled around his ankles, Bertie was beginning to discover how wrong he’d been.
He’d tried to twist his way out from beneath her punishing hand, to no avail. And despite the workout he was giving her, Sophie showed no signs of slowing.
“Are you going to tell me why you ignored me for so long,” she was summarizing, “or do I have to smack the white out of your ass?”
The more he struggled, the harder she held firm, imprisoned between the arm holding him from above and the strong thighs below. He was trapped. He was helpless. And strangely, he was euphoric.
Neither talking nor trying to escape had worked. He was taking this spanking no matter what, and in that acceptance a particular light-headedness had come over him. He was powerless, but he felt secure in Sophie’s grasp, despite the agony she was dealing him.
So he told her.
NOW
Bertie wished he had a coffee of his own, something to occupy his hands. He wouldn’t mind a little Irish in that coffee, either.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate, Sophie.”
“You’re right, it’s not really the question I wanted to ask, either.” She exhaled. “What happened with us… it changed me. I didn’t really think of myself as a boss bitch, but as the years passed, I’ve started to think about it more and more.”
“Sophie…” They were seated at a table near the back of the café, but he not so far back that an interested patron – or God forbid, employee – could overhear.
“Jahmar’s a good man, a good husband. I don’t know what to tell him, even if I could tell him. You’re the only one who knows.”
“Sophie, this isn’t a conversation I’m comfortable having.”
“Then let’s not make it a conversation,” she said with sudden resolve. “Just a question. Would you do it again? For me?”
THEN
He was content to stay there, laid across her knees, the air conditioning whispering over his hot cheeks. Her arm has released its hold on his midsection, and she’d left him room to stand up when he was ready.
When they’d met, Sophie had been a quiet, shy girl, easily rattled by rude patrons and content to hide behind her books. Time and experience had changed her into a remarkable woman, one who wasn’t afraid to voice an interest in her longtime friend and confidante.
It was unfortunate, then, that the journey had taken so long.
For a moment, Bertie saw past the hard-won self-assurance and saw behind Sophie’s eyes that same scared and doubting girl he’d met years ago.
“I’m sorry.”
The girl vanished, as if his words had ended her spell. Sophie looked down at him, a wicked grin forming on her lips.
“How sorry are you?”
His head was still swimming from the spanking she’d just given him. Even as he spoke the words, he knew he would regret them.
“Oh, very sorry. I’ve been a bad boy. Are you going to spank me?”
She leapt at the bait, peppering his ass with a series of smacks that undid the tender ministrations of the air conditioner in seconds. He slumped against her knee, panting for breath.
“You like this, don’t you?” Sophie murmured.
“I’m not sure,” said Bertie, “I mean, I feel like Hell, but…”
“No, I mean you like this. You’re leaking.” She reached a long finger down between Bertie’s legs to the tip of his penis. She tapped his glans softly, just enough to let him feel the precum dribbling from its head onto her leg.
No one had ever touched him like that, not even Rachel. He sighed with pleasure.
She adjusted her grip, brushing over the length of his shaft and letting it fall into the center of her palm, still warm from Bertie’s recent punishment.
Slowly, gently, she started to tug,
Bertie remembers this day in exacting detail. Despite the regret he would carry for years later, he could excuse everything proceeding this moment as him having submitted to Sophie, and she had been the one in control.
At this moment, though, her domination had ended. If only he’d asked, she would have stopped, let him go, and helped him to his feet.
If only.
He came, sooner and more quietly than either one of them expected, leaving a trail of liquid dripping down Sophie’s leg. She had laughed good-naturedly, gone to get some tissues to clean up his mess.
Bertie had dressed quickly while she was away. They made their awkward farewells and left separately for home.
NOW
She sat quietly in the chair across from him, awaiting his response with a need that he could feel more than see in her face.
“A few months ago,” he said finally, “Rachel laid into me with her hand and a belt. I could barely walk afterward, I couldn’t sit comfortably for days.”
Sophie blinked. “So she spanks you, now?” she whispered, “Or is this why you started going to counseling?”
“I asked her to, Sophie, because I had just told her about what went on between the two of us. Dress it up however you like, but I cheated on her and lived with the guilt for eight years. I’m not doing that again, not even for you.”
She relaxed her grip on his phone, and he started typing.
“I’m going to give you a web address,” he continued. “It’s for a group of people with similar interests to ours. Take it slow, talk to some of them first…”
“I don’t need to join some sexual freak parade,” Sophie hissed. “I’m asking an old friend for help.”
“An old friend that you haven’t seen in years. A friend you ghosted because you felt guilty. Do us both a favour – talk to your husband. Who knows, maybe he’ll be into it too.” He stood up, but couldn’t resist firing the last shot.
“You used to be the most fearless woman I knew. What happened?”
He turned on his heel and returned to the counter. Sophie would always be his first, he knew. But the timing hadn’t worked about before, and it never would again. It was time to go back to work.
