By Callipygian
Lori and Damon returned to the house where a meal was waiting. Lana was the perfect hostess and Lori sensed that a special effort had been made in her honour. Melt scurried about nervously constantly glancing at Lana for approval.
The other two young women offered more muted support, for the most part standing back as if uncertain what to do. Both were younger than Lori, both wore ornate embroidered tunics that were laced at the front and both very short skirts that were only a little longer than minis so that they were left bare-legged except for neat embroidered flat hoes. They both too wore hair loose to the shoulder, one blonde, the other, the older girl a very definite brown.
Lori wasn’t sure which was which yet, but Lana looked for too young to be the mother of either. As if seeing her interest the older girl smiled and stepped forward.
“This is my ward, Eleni,” Damon said.
Eleni was blessed with hazel eyes that danced happily as she executed a quick shallow courtesy. She was about 20, Lori guessed, and about to exploded with questions.
Mari, the blonde, was maybe 18 and seemed shy as she too made a quick bob, her crystal blue eyes never breaking contact.
“And Mari my daughter,” Damon continued the introductions, “Melt, you have already met.”
The maid curtseyed more formally.
Lana smiled in Lori’s direction but continued to fuss around the table. “You should probably explain that I am Mari’s stepmother,” she put in.
“You already have my love,” Damon chuckled. They exchanged loving glances.
Lori felt strange, this was a dream surely. “Yesterday I was…” she didn’t finish, she couldn’t even remember. “So what happens now?”
“We eat,” Damon grinned.
***
The food was good. Not elaborate, more like rustic French with a variety of vegetables she mostly recognised. The meat was lamb with a hint of pink and potatoes that were not quite potatoes… the texture was the same but is was yellow and the flavour was touched by something like cauliflower or swede. She thought of Sunday lunch with her grandmother at the nursing home.
“So what does happen now?” Lori asked. She spoke not because she needed to know but because she suddenly felt lost again and was starting to panic. Focus, she urged herself. She wanted to run, find the path out of the valley and back to Box Hill… it felt like days now but it had been hours… how did she know?
“Are you alright?” Lana asked.
Lori forced a smile and nodded.
They were all looking at her and the room had fallen silent.
“I make an application at the court house… where we were today and then you accept the application at the temple in the presence of the priest who blesses the arrangement.” Damon was frowning, speaking only as a distraction. He hated talking of serious matters at the table.
“Don’t I have to sign anything?” again Lori didn’t really care just then but just wanted everyone to talk normally.
Mari laughed at this and Eleni elbowed her. Her mother too scowled. “I should think you are in enough trouble,” she said.
Mari blushed and looked downwards.
“Women… well no…” Lana began.
“You are not a citizen so you have now legal identity, so you cannot sign,” Damon cut in.
“That is what I meant,” Lana agreed, but she was uncomfortable.
Damon waited for his wife to continue before he decided she wasn’t going to say more. “My fault,” he said, “I told everyone to tread carefully, but we have nothing to hide. I know a little bit about your world or at least worlds like it… from the off-worlders who have come before. I think what Lana was going to say, if you will permit me,” he said to his wife, “You cannot sign because you are not a citizen… yet. But even if you were you will not be a head of a household so you cannot sign. Mostly heads of household are men so that means women do not usually sign legal documents. I know that perhaps on your world this is not so… your manner of dress suggests that this is the case.”
“I see,” Lori said, she liked the conversational distraction, “You said ‘usually,’ are there exceptions?”
“Yes, many,” Damon replied; although Lori got the impression that she did not quite agree with the word ‘many.’
Damon smiled at his wife who shrugged and crinkled up her nose at him. It was an old discussion and she didn’t really care so much and even if she did there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing her husband could do if it came to it. Besides, his liberal views only went so far.
“Women who become widows or otherwise separated from husbands… especially those with adult children… can become heads of a household with all the rights and duties,” Damon said.
“So long as they are over 30 and usually have to be much older than that; and only if the elders of their House agree,” Lana countered.
Damon looked as if he might get angry and then his face relaxed. “Yes, quite so,” he agreed, “It is not always an ideal situation.”
Lana grunted in what might have been disgust. This did draw a look of open disapproval from Damon.
“Women can and do rise to positions of authority,” Eleni said diplomatically. “A few even become Landers.”
“Landers?” Lori asked, she was feeling a rising panic again.
“The Lander is the ruling body of Bastian, each House sends an Elder to sit as a lawmaker, sometimes two as the House Parlance does. Then there are the gilds, they too send a representative,” Damon explained.
“And this includes women?” Lori asked.
“Yes,” Damon answered.
“Sometimes,” Lana said.
Damon shot her a ‘look.’ “No more talk of politics at the table,” he said.
“More green beans?” his wife said quickly, that dish being the nearest to her.
Lori declined and sank back into her thoughts. Then after a bit she said, “May I go to the temple after… before it gets dark?” she had no idea when that was.
“I can take her,” Eleni piped up.
“Me too,” Mari said.
“You, young lady have to have a small conversation with your father,” Lana said to her step daughter.
“But yes… Eleni, take Lori to the temple, why not?” Damon agreed.
***
The afternoon sun was low casting a red warm light that bathed everything in a soft orange glow. Lori felt hyper alert and more alive than she had ever felt in her life and also strangely relaxed. The streets were quiet and only the light hush of the breeze in the trees competed with some faint distant yelling.
“It is the docks, they go on until dark and then it really gets interesting,” Eleni told Lori. “We are not allowed to go there, especially after dark.”
“Are you allowed out after dark at all?” Lori asked, somehow she expected Damon to be very strict.
“Of course, well if it is needful, although not on a school night,” Eleni said.
“School…? How are old are you?” Lori stopped, she was surprised.
“Don’t you study?” Eleni seemed equally puzzled.
“Well no… I work or did… but I suppose I might have done an MBA or doctorate… but that’s college… most people my age are working,” she explained.
“I’m 20, but it makes no difference, most young people study until they are married,” Eleni said, “Not just book learning, but practical stuff.”
“Boys too?” the off-worlder knew the answer to that, but she was surprised.
“Yes, not at our school of course,” Eleni said, “The very bright ones go to the university in the city… girls as well as boys… mostly young men go to an academy that is residential… less common for women. Then there are apprenticeships, again mostly boys, but very often girls too. That includes the military, which is a kind of apprenticeship here… but that is a new idea, well fairly new.”
“So boys get married and then set up house where they are the boss,” Lori said.
“Well… kind of, but not really. I might get married any time… if I am asked or my family want me to. Especially once I am over 21. My husband will be 30 or much more… boys don’t get married until they can support a family,” Eleni said casually.
“So married women don’t work?”
“Some do, it depends,” Eleni replied.
Lori sense that her questions were becoming tiresome, so they walked on and soon came to the town square. From here where they could see the temple set on the low hill above the settlement. The orange light made it look magical and again Lori was put in mind of ancient Rome or Athens.
“Do you go to ch… the temple much?” Lori asked, “Some people in my world go every Sunday.”
“Why?” Eleni stopped, “Can’t they go any time?”
“Yes but the sermons are on Sunday and all that worship stuff… I don’t know, it has never been my thing,” Lori didn’t want to explain Christian customs here and now, they did not belong.
“Sermons… you mean speeches, what like a politician? I don’t get it,” Eleni said, “Aren’t your gods a personal thing?”
“We only have the one god… well I don’t… you know, it is nuts now that I think about it,” Lori laughed. “I think the priest tells everyone how god wants them to behave.”
Eleni laughed, really laughed, “That is nuts, how is he supposed to know that? I mean one priest or even a dozen… do they have a clear dialogue with the gods about each person? How do you know that the priest isn’t lying and just making stuff up… what if…” she continued to laugh.
“Look, that’s why I am not into it,” Lori said now trying to laugh herself and failing. “So you just go as and when as you feel like it?”
“It is more complicated than that… and there are festivals, but yes, pretty much,” Eleni told her.
They reached the steps that led to the temple and Lori felt that pull again, like she was supposed to go inside. The sun was very low and the red light set the mostly white marble building on fire.
“Do you want to go in alone?” Eleni asked.
Lori shook her head and took a deep breath. There was truth here and real magic. Maybe even some answers. The first step she took onto the lowest stair felt irrevocable.
***
The temple was dark inside, but the atmosphere was electric. There was a low fire burning in the left corner from the door and somewhere water ran fast and musically. High up there were small rectangles of light that admitted the dying day and cast boxes of glowing on the tiles but this only served to throw the recesses into contrasting dark.
There were statues, four of them, one in each corner. Hard to make out, but the one near the fire was a twist of a male as if emerging from living rock. There was a white marble woman draped in a stone shroud that obscured her face who seemed to dance in the flickering fire light.
Then as she turned back to the great doors on the left she could see a masculine antlered figure with a stern visage and a twisted staff longer than he was. To his right another female, her face too obscured, this time by a hood and she seemed hunched over.
Lori tried to picture the poses of each for a meaning but in her mind the moved, changing their stance until she could not be certain of their intent, hidden as it was in plain sight.
“He is my favourite,” Eleni whispered as she looked up in awe.
“What is his name?” Lori asked, thinking he might be her favourite too.
“I cannot speak it aloud, not in here, you will have to… I don’t know, I don’t know how I know it or when I learned his name,” Eleni was astonished at this revelation as if she never had the thought before.
“That’s helpful,” Lori said, but she did not feel the sarcasm she was trying to speak. It didn’t matter as Eleni was already kneeling to face the antlered figure.
Lori joined her and did not feel foolish. “You know it is just an effigy don’t you?”
“Of course, this is a place of celebration and contemplation not of containment, the gods could never be held by man,” Eleni whispered and then closed her eyes and mouthed some words.
Lori left her too it and made a slow turn of the temple’s interior, respectfully gazing at each statue in turn. Then once back in the centre of the large room and bathed in the dying light of the sun she closed her eyes.
For the longest time she felt nothing, but she was no longer afraid.
“Come on, we have to go,” Eleni said, “It is getting dark.”
Lori nodded as she opened her eyes and turned to follow.
‘Come again and go, then come again, but never to your own land.’ The words were not spoken or even heard. Maybe Lori imagined them, but as she looked about she could see each pair of eyes on her, even those of the obscured goddesses.
“Shall I accept this?” she called out. There was no reply.
***
As soon as they stepped through the door Eleni giggled and put her hand to her mouth. Lori swept the hall only to see Mari facing the wall in the corner between the rising staircase and the door to the dining room. Her hands were upon her head and her skirts were turned up behind so that her neat small bottom was displayed to the household anyone entering the dwelling.
The off-worlder felt a surge of something, a frisson as felt when stumbling upon certain words in a book assumed vanilla or workaday. She had felt it when seeing the outlaw punished and this was a bigger surge of feelings for reasons she could not quite grasp.
“So embarrassing,” Eleni said, she smirked even as she tried to sound neutral. She made an appreciative face and looked at Lori for a similar reaction. No doubt she found one because her smirk broke into a smile.
Lori gaped and didn’t know what to say. It felt good and bad all at once.
“Go away,” Mari moaned.
“That would not be just or seemly young lady,” Eleni said pompously.
“What… why…?” Lori could only point.
“She is waiting for a spanking after coming home late yesterday, aren’t you?” Eleni said.
“Please go away,” Mari made a little stamp of her foot.
“A spanking…?”
“Father will attend to her soon no doubt,” Eleni swallowed her smirk and tried to look stern.
“Isn’t she too old for a spanking?” Lori was rooted to the spot as she gaped.
Eleni giggled again and took her new friend’s arm. “Ouch, looks like you’re going to learn the hard way.”
“What do you mean?” Lori asked; there was an upsurge in her arousal and that went tenfold her nervous apprehension.
“I think you know,” Eleni said ruefully.
Lori blushed. “They won’t… I mean…”
“Come on,” Eleni said, “Best not to overthink it.”
***
Lori sat in what was to be her room and let the day’s events cascade through her mind; too much and too many thoughts to make any sense. It had been late afternoon when she had been lost in Surrey, then after an eternity in Toveydale she had had a late lunch. It had been so long since she had slept and absolutely nothing made sense.
“A cake can only be eaten one slice at a time,” she remembered her grandmother’s words. Lori signed and looked around the room.
There were three thick oaken beams that were dark with age. The panelling and shelves were also dark oak, but not as black-brown at the beams. The books on the shelves had titles she did not recognised and the art was best described as mediaeval –impressionist. She took a deep breath and went to the window.
If there was any doubt about this being a different world the moon sealed it. It was huge, the same old Luna she thought, but either more than twice the size or much nearer. She stared at it for an age. It was more than half full and gave off a silver light that cast shadows in the street outside.
If this was real then were the voices she heard in the temple were real. Except she hadn’t heard them… not exactly, was she mad? Maybe she was in a coma? There was no point in following that line of thought.
In some ways Damon and Lana were the parents she never had… the family was… but then… what was the whole spanking thing all about? She thought about her online porn stash and the trashy novels she liked.
‘You brought you here,’ hadn’t the priest said something like that?
Okay don’t think magic, think science. The parallel universe was possible in quantum physics; that meant she could go back. The priest and Damon’s opinion that she was destined to be here was a superstition. She liked that thought but she parked it. She was a kid out of care with a dead grandmother. She knew hope could kill.
“Hey,” Eleni said from the door, Lori hadn’t closed it.
“Hey,” Lori smiled.
“We ate lunch kind of late but there is soup and maybe some oatcakes if you’re hungry,” Eleni said. “Or even if you’re not; we don’t skip meals here.”
Lori sensed she was missing something. “That sounds ominous somehow.”
“Let’s just say I came here at 16 from a very different upbringing and learned the hard way,” Eleni said gently.
“I can relate, really I can, you have no idea. But you do know that I am 24?”
Eleni smiled and looked confused again. “Yes, what of it?” she shrugged dismissively, “It doesn’t make you better than me.”
“I had a job,” Lori shot back.
“So, lots of girls have jobs, you’re better off in school until you know what you want,” Eleni snapped.
“Look, I’m sorry, I am just processing,” Lori backed off.
“I have no idea what that means… but I think I get it,” Eleni said, “This must all be very strange and I can’t wait to hear about your world.”
“You said something about supper?”
Mari did not join the family for supper, not exactly. Instead she was now in the corner of the dining room, her bottom still very bare.
“Mari is in disgrace,” Lana explained when she saw Lori’s confused look.
“I see,” Lori said, but she really didn’t.
“She and I will have words after supper,” Damon said.
Mari shifted uncomfortably. Lori didn’t want to make things worse but she needed to understand. “Didn’t have words, as you so euphemistically put it, after lunch?”
There was a sudden silence and Lori wished to hell that she hadn’t pushed. She was still troubled by the conversation with Eleni upstairs and the apparent fact that she as 24 not really mattering.
“You do not challenge or question…” Lana was furious.
“No, please,” Damon put up a hand, “This is all so new to us all, different customs and all that. Firstly, I have never believed that our actions cannot be questioned…” he shook his head in denial, “Let us be fair, all respect to you. You cannot challenge authority once decisions have been made, which is also fair. Now to answer you quite valid question: some conversations have more than one part. Mari and I had a chat about her recent failings and the consequences that were to follow. As part of her restitution she had something to attend to this afternoon while you and Eleni were out. Now she is contemplating the second part of her correction and is in disgrace and will not join us until the air has been cleared.”
“Sorry I was so sharp,” Lana put in.
There still an atmosphere in the room and Lori realised that she had been rude. Mari was of an age that she might have been in the Upper Sixth back home and even in 21st century London it wasn’t unheard off for such a girl to get a spanking now and then; not fashionable, not common, but 50 years before… hey there is freaking giant moon and this is another world.
“Hey, I was a brat, I probably could have used a good hiding or two when I was 18,” Lori said, cringing inside and not believing she had just said that. Still the implication that she was now too old for such treatment had been made.
“Did you hear, a ship brining in honey came in today,” Lana said enthusiastically.
“Oh and maybe some cider,” Eleni added with a grin.
Damon smiled and reached for some bread. “I shall have to watch you both for overindulgence I can see that,” he chuckled.
Everyone laughed and Lori silently thanked whichever merchant had commissioned the ship.
***
Lori was absolutely exhausted after the meal and after more random chatter she made her goodnights and headed to bed. She paused only to consider Mari who had all that time been standing in the corner of the room while other’s got to eat. She must be mortified, Lori thought, but she felt a strange warm feeling and curious about her situation rather than sympathetic.
She had been given a nightgown of sorts, long past the knees, which Lori might have put over some knickers, but she had none spare and instead enjoyed the sensuous feel of soft high quality cotton, if that indeed what it was, caressing her bare legs. Sitting on the bed she chose a book that seemed to be a young adult history, but to Lori it seemed like a fairy-tale, with names and places so exotic that she was amazed.
The knock at the door was a surprise, more so when Eleni entered. “Sorry about earlier, I keep forgetting you are an off-worlder and how exciting it all is, but how difficult it must be for you.”
Lori held up the book and smiled, “No I get it, this is crazy shit, I mean… wow is this really your history?”
“’Crazy shit?’ You talk so funny… I mean why would you say that… I mean it is alright, but it is such an odd word to say in that way,” Eleni suddenly thought she would start another argument.
“Sorry, you are right, I was… swearing I suppose, we do that a lot where I am from, ‘it is not smart and it’s not clever,’ she quoted her grandmother.
“Oh I get it, I think,” Eleni laughed, “And no it is not really history… but it kind of is, embellished for kids and exaggerated I think…”
“We had books like that too,” Lori put the book down and figured she had just read the local version of Robin Hood or King Arthur.
“Listen, come with me,” Eleni said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Okay,” Lori said and followed Eleni down the hall to some back stairs. “Where are we going?”
“Shhh,” Eleni put her finger to her lips.
The stairs led to a short corridor and into what Lori might consider a minstrel gallery or a small mezzanine. A small set-back area that was open on one side to the large library-like room below. Lori heard voices and looked down.
Damon was berating his daughter, saying “it had been the third time,” and “Have you even looked at the work you should have done?”
Mari just stood with her head bowed and her bottom still uncovered.
“Has she been in the corner all this time?” Lori asked. It was a whisper but of the stage variety.
Eleni urgently put her finger to her lips.
Below there was more scolding until the crestfallen Mari was taken across her father’s lap. Lori felt strange peeking like this, it was something a teenager might do… but there was a frisson too. Eleni was grinning.
“You’re not supposed to be enjoying this,” Lori mouthed, but her eyes were locked onto the scene below.
“She does the same when it is my turn,” Eleni shrugged, but her gaze was downwards too and instinctively she licked her lips.
Mari’s bare bottom was pert and upturned in her father’s lap and seen from above it looked round and vulnerable. Damon slapped it once hard, landing a crack that Lori almost felt from above. The second slap followed at a short interval and then several more. They were not quite into double figures when Mari began to gasp and grunt at the impacts, by then her bottom was quite pink all over. The spanking got harder and faster from then on and Eleni was breathing heavily, her mouth open as she drank it in.
Lori felt so guilty watching, but her heart was racing and she could not tear herself away.
The spank was hard and steady and soon Mari’s bottom was more than pink, but leaning heavily towards tomato and the spanking was by no means over. Mari herself was wailing and protesting.
“So sorry, please, I will do better,” were words that escaped Mari’s mouth, but there was no conviction in them. They were markers more than begging and Lori had a hunch that this was a scene played out many times before.
“You can’t expect to escape consequence, you can’t keep ducking out late and neglecting your homework,” Damon said sharply, “Homework first and then back on time,” he told her.
“Yes Daddy, sorry Daddy,” Mari wailed.
“You have said this before,” her father scolded, each word accompanied by a hard spank.
Mari’s bottom was darker red and somewhat swollen. It was too far for the two witnesses to see, but the skin of her naked behind held a tight rash of small goose-pimples and there was a raised welt separating spanked form unspanked skin.
“Next time,” he spanked her rapidly, “Next time it is the paddle,” she said, “And mark me if you can’t sit down for a week.”
“He always says that,” Eleni smirked, “It is never more than three or four days.” She was loving every swat and her arousal was unbridled now.
“We… we really shouldn’t,” Lori was in denial about her similar feelings and tried to be the grown up, but she too could not find the strength of character to leave.
Below Mari began to cry, really cry. Her father spanked her for another two or three minutes and then called a halt. “Come here,” he said and held her.
Mari sobbed hard and crushed into him.
“Come on,” Eleni said, she was embarrassed now and moved away.
Lori nodded, although part of her wanted to stay.
“Call that an education,” a violently blushing Eleni said once they had returned up another flight of stairs.
“If you like, but you loved it,” Lori accused, but it was a deflection and she was blushing too.
Eleni shrugged and smirked again. “I will leave you to ponder it alone…” she turned and winked as she left Lori at her door, “I know I will.”
Part III
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