Maya Patel’s mother and father had emigrated from India to the UK with their respective families in the late 1960s. They were very ambitious for their only daughter and, at considerable cost and sacrifice, had paid for her to be educated at a private school. Maya was worth it, but in return they expected her to work hard and maintain high standards of behaviour. The family name and their standing in the community were paramount. By the late 1990s, Maya had repaid their trust in her, she had studied hard, and with straight As in her A levels she was reading for a Bsc (Hons) degree in Computer Science at a top University in London.

During the summer holidays Maya was expected to contribute to the household income. Whilst she was looking for holiday work she bumped into the Head of Computer Science at the University, Professor Pete Taylor, and casually asked if he had any ideas. He had identified Maya as one of the top students in the year group and eventually managed to secure her a placement at a medium-sized City firm who traded in ethical stocks and shares. He had briefly dated the CEO, Mary-Jane Beasley, and felt that Maya would fit into the company ethos. It was a unique, tightly-knit working environment and all employees from the CEO down were women. The company was very successful and appealed to many rich and famous clients who did not want to be seen investing in oil, gas or companies selling arms to the Middle East.

Maya joined the Computer Services department. Together with her line manager, Sandra, they were responsible for rolling out ‘fixes’ and ‘patches’ across the company’s computers so that the trading floor software was up to date and secure. Sandra was 25-years-old and had joined the company straight from university having attained a first class honours degree. She was slim, tall and quite pretty, wore glasses which gave her an intellectual look, and dressed elegantly. In the summer she wore lovely knee or thigh length dresses that accentuated her shapely long legs and she often wore a stylish belt which meant the dresses hugged her shapely, pert bottom.

“Software patches and updates can only be rolled out once they have been checked by Miranda, our security expert, and signed off by Geraldine, the Head of Computer Services,” Sandra explained. “This screen here shows when a patch is ready for roll-out and then we run this program which will install it on all company computers. The software used on the trading floor is what we call ‘mission critical’ and if we screw it up the company could lose a lot of money, and I mean A LOT of money, for our clients. So, we must follow the procedures.”

Maya was very excited but also very nervous, given the magnitude of responsibility they had. She very quickly got into the swing of the work and Sandra was delighted that she didn’t really need to monitor the new arrival 24 hours a day. Indeed, within a few weeks, Maya became a popular member of the Computer Services team. This wasn’t much of a surprise as she had a discerning smile, a lovely light brown complexion, long black hair, usually tied in a ponytail that hung down about 3 inches below her neck, and had what one might consider a homely figure for a girl who stood 5 foot 3 inches tall. She had full breasts and an ample bottom that nicely filled her trousers, leggings or dress, depending on her attire. All this coupled with her intelligence and general good humour made for a winning combination.

****

At the start of her third working week Maya was sitting in the office when a bit of a rumpus occurred. Geraldine was in a bad mood when she returned from the CEO's office. She snapped at everyone to get on with their work and, without going back to her office, located in the far corner, she summoned Melanie, the Help Desk girl, to follow her to the small stock room at the back of the office. Maya sat quietly and watched as the two of them disappeared and the door shut. Melanie could be a bit prickly at times but she was generally pretty good at filtering the calls to Computer Services, ensuring they were quickly and efficiently prioritised.

“Crikey, she’s in for it now,” said Sandra.

“In for what?” enquired Maya.

“A good hiding I should think,” came the reply. “If Geraldine takes you in there it’s only for one thing, to have your backside tanned, and I mean tanned good and proper. I have no idea what Melanie has done but she has clearly upset someone.” Sandra pointed upwards towards the ceiling, implying the bosses of the company whose offices were on the floor above.

Maya had grown up in a strict household and had occasionally been given an over-the-knee spanking by her mom or her grandma with hand or occasionally the hairbrush when she was younger. However, she had not encountered it outside the family home.

“Is that actually legal?” she said.

“Did you read your contract, honey?” Sandra whispered. “It clearly states that you will submit to disciplinary action in any form if you bring the company into disrepute etc.”

Overhearing the conversation, the other girls in the office giggled and raised their eyebrows. Maya felt a bit naive that everyone seemed to know what was going on except her.

“Well, yes, but,” Maya stopped as there was an audible WHACK and an even more audible ‘ouch’ from the stock room. Everyone stopped to listen as a further five spaced out WHACKS sounded out, followed by a variety of painful cries which got successively louder.

“She’s given her six with that strap, probably on her bare bottom,” hypothesised Sandra.

“Yep, she will be sore for a day or two,” Miranda chipped in with a smile and a giggle.

“She’s most likely got poor Melanie bent over the desk in there with her jeans and knickers down to her ankles while she applies some discipline to her backside,” Sandra chuckled as the rest of the team laughed.

“We’ve all been in there for up to ten strokes of that strap,” Miranda explained. “You get used to it, well, sort of. It becomes a bit of a badge of honour. You are sore for a day or two but it is much better than long drawn out procedures involving HR. Those investigations happened at my last company, and usually end up with resignations, ill-feeling and sometimes costly legal bills.”

“What you really need to avoid is being hauled into Mary-Jane’s office upstairs,” said one of the other girls. They all nodded.

“Indeed, she has several canes on her bookcase and they really focus the mind. I got six strokes just after Christmas and it took nearly a week for the lines to disappear. Sitting comfortably was a struggle,” Sandra announced as the rest of the girls smirked and sympathised.

Once the whacks and howls had finished, there was silence and everyone went back to work. The door opened and Melanie re-appeared rubbing the seat of her jeans.

“Let that be a lesson to you all,” Geraldine snarled. “If you want to be rude to the CEO then feel free, but I will take it out on your backside after I’ve had my ear chewed off.”

Melanie sat down tentatively at the Help Desk and waited for the next call, looking a little sheepish. Once Geraldine was safely back in her office with the door closed, everyone smiled at Melanie and gave her a supportive wink or thumbs up. It seemed like a bit of a game, if a rather painful one.

****

Towards the end of the summer, Maya had acquitted herself well. The work was pretty easy and she had helped to streamline the upgrade and patches process which pleased everyone especially the girls on the trading floor. Geraldine had very much taken a liking to Maya and, together with the Mary-Jane, they had decided that she was wasted just rolling out patches and that they should enter into a scholarship arrangement with the university so that they could help Maya financially. There would be guaranteed work during the holidays and, of course, a job when she graduated. A worthwhile investment leading to the recruitment of top talent.

When Maya heard the news she was delighted and thought that she should treat Sandra to lunch, given that it had been Sandra who had helped her so much in her early days. About 1.00 pm, they headed to a decent bistro and ordered some food and a bottle of wine. They were both very excited and chatted away. The lunch turned out to be slightly longer than expected and one bottle of wine turned out to be a bit more than one.

With lunch concluded, they ‘swayed’ back to the office and Sandra said she had better go home and get some rest as it was already 4.30 pm and besides she wasn’t in any state to work. Maya grabbed her bag and was just about to follow when she noticed a patch waiting to be rolled out. She pressed the button, checked it had been delivered to the trading floor, shut her laptop and went home.

****

The following morning, Maya arrived at work later than usual as she felt a little hungover and walked into utter chaos. Geraldine was running around barking orders to her team and Sandra was frantically looking at her screen.

“What’s going on?” Maya asked.

“It looks like a rogue patch has shut down the trading software,” Sandra responded in panic mode. “I can’t understand it. It seems it was rolled out last night but it hadn't been checked by Miranda and hadn’t been signed off by Geraldine. I don’t remember sending it and neither of us were in any state to be working at that time.”

“What?” said Maya. “Oh no! I rolled out a patch last night as I left and I’m sure that I checked…” her voice tailed off.

“Maya, you weren’t in any state to roll out software fixes when we got back from the office. What were you thinking? We are in the mire now, I can tell you, and we’d better sort it out, pronto.”

Maya set about helping to sort out the mess in order to get the girls on the trading floor back to work. Eventually, after about an hour, all computers had been rolled back to a previous software version and calm had descended once more. But, the inquest was about to begin.

Maya, Sandra and Miranda were all called into Geraldine’s office, and it became very clear that Sandra should have been supervising Maya but she was drunk and that Maya, also drunk, had indeed caused the issue. The phone on Geraldine’s desk rang and the voice of a very irate Mary-Jane could be heard. They had lost just under half a million pounds that morning and she wanted to see the culprits immediately.

Maya and Sandra were marched upstairs and stood in Mary-Jane’s office in front of her desk like naughty schoolgirls. Geraldine stood by the door as Mary-Jane glared at the girls.

“You two have caused a great deal of trouble,” she spoke quietly but with controlled anger in her voice, coupled with disappointment. “Have you anything to say?”

Both girls thought better of it and shook their heads.

“Right. You are both bright young ladies and have promising futures ahead of you with this company. I don’t like terminating contracts as I am sure you would be swept up very quickly by our competitors and we don’t want that, do we?” she half smiled.

The girls shook their heads.

“Whilst the girls on the trading floor set about recovering the money and keeping our clients happy you two need to learn a lesson, especially one about drinking at lunchtime and then trying to do important work straight after.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Maya blurted out, as if she was still at school.

“Right,” Mary-Jane responded. “You both know that we thrive in this company on internal discipline and we get excellent results by handling issues ‘in-house’, so to speak. Much more cost effective than involving solicitors, HR departments and the like. So, I intend to deal with you myself.”

Geraldine nodded her approval as Maya’s heart sank. She knew pretty much what was coming and was quite nervous as she’d seen girls rubbing their bottoms a few times over the last few weeks. Sandra looked across at Maya and half winked, trying to alleviate the tension, but they both knew that by the time they left the office their backsides were going to be pretty sore.

“Sandra, you are first up. It’s not your first time, so assume the position. Maya, you stand over there and watch carefully.”

Sandra hitched up her pale blue, knee-length dress and promptly pulled her yellow knickers down. She took them off and placed them on the desk in front of her. Ensuring her dress was raised above her waist, revealing a very pert, smooth white bottom, she bent over the desk and grasped the far edge. Her breasts were firmly resting on the desk, as were her elbows, and her shapely legs were straight, feet firmly planted on the floor about two feet apart. Her bottom was sticking out ready for its punishment.

Mary-Jane went to the corner of her office and, from the top of the bookcase, she took a thin whippy cane which was about two and a half feet long. Without hesitation, she walked round the desk and stood to the left of Sandra.

“Six strokes for negligence,” she pronounced in a matter of fact way, as if this was something she delivered a lot.

She raised the cane to shoulder level and swung hard. SWISH - CRACK. A livid red line appeared within a second of impact and Sandra grunted. To try to take the sting away she went up on tip-toes and her bottom cheeks clenched and then un-clenched.

As soon as she relaxed and was ready with her bottom sticking out, another stroke, SWISH - CRACK was delivered.

“Owwwee!” Sandra groaned. She wriggled and again went on tip-toes as another thin red line joined its companion on her bottom.

By the time Mary-Jane had finished, there were six bright red lines across Sandra’s backside and the rest of her bottom looked sore where the pain had spread out from the places of direct impact. Sandra had howled when the cane had cut lower on the fourth and fifth strokes, and even more loudly when the last one crossed diagonally over the other five. A sort of gate pattern was perfectly imprinted in red lines.

Sandra remained in position while Geraldine and Maya looked on, noting how accurate Mary-Jane was with the wicked implement.

“You may rise and swap places with Maya,” Sandra commanded.

Sandra stood up and let her dress fall back into position. She grasped her yellow knickers in her hand and didn’t bother to put them on. Everyone knew that would be an uncomfortable experience.

Maya moved towards the desk and, as their paths crossed, Sandra gave an encouraging smile. When she was stood in front of the desk, Maya eased her tight black leggings down to her ankles. She was left standing there in her black lacy underwear which was tight-fitting and didn’t cover much of her ample bottom.

“Get those down as well.” Sandra pointed at the black knickers with her cane.

Maya felt embarrassed, but put her fingers into the elastic waistband and pulled them down to her ankles so they rested on her already lowered leggings. Her pale bottom was now on show and as Mary-Jane tapped on the desk she lowered herself across it just as her friend and colleague had done a few minutes before her.

When she was flat across the desk, her bottom was presented ready for its whipping.

“You will stay in that position until the end of your punishment,” ordered Mary-Jane. “If you stand up or try to rub I will add extras. I suggest you grip the far edge of the desk tightly.”

Maya grasped the edge of the desk, which meant she had to move further onto the desk and was now on tip-toes. Her bottom was lifted even further into the air.

“You are not only guilty of negligence but also working under the influence of alcohol. Two offences, for which you will also receive six strokes with my medium cane.”

Mary-Jane went back to her bookcase, returned the whippy cane and exchanged it for a slightly thicker and less bendy version of the same length.

Maya lay there and waited, but not for long. As soon as Mary-Jane had walked back around her desk she heard the familiar SWISH - CRACK. Time stood still until a searing pain emanated from the line that had been branded across her bottom.

“Aghhh!” she squealed, writhing around on the table as the sudden, unexpected pain exploded across both cheeks along the centre of her bottom. She grasped the edge of the desk tightly and involuntarily tried to relieve the pain by clenching her bottom cheeks. Her knees bent and her feet, bound together by the knickers and leggings, lifted off the floor. She kicked like a swimmer doing butterfly.

Mary-Jane, Sandra and Geraldine watched the result of the first stroke as a white line appeared across the lovely skin and then turned into a dark red ridge. None of them had seen an Indian girl’s bottom being caned, so the visual experience was new and in a strange way quite thrilling.

As soon as Maya was once again in position, no time was wasted and SWISH - CRACK the next stroke was delivered from shoulder-height with equal force. It bit just below the first.

“Ahhhh! Owwww!” howled Maya. The second stroke wasn’t as painful because she knew what to expect but it was still sore and her feet still popped up with her bottom cheeks, clenching then un-clenching in a most inelegant manner. It was hard for her to kick and squirm like she wanted to as her ankles were well and truly hobbled by her trousers and underwear.

The punishment continued and Mary-Jane knew that it was important for Maya to learn a valuable lesson at the start of her career. She was such a promising, rising star and she could not be seen to get away with making this sort of mistake.

The third and fourth strokes were applied below the first two and more howls came from Maya as she grasped the table tighter, started to pant and grit her teeth. Her bottom rose up and down and her writhing bound legs put on a most inelegant display as she tried to alleviate the pain.

The fifth stroke caught her in the crease between bottom and thighs which caused a guttural howl; a noise that sounded more like a wild animal. Maya’s legs kicked hard, causing her trousers and knickers to come off one foot. With free legs she wriggled and bucked even more, her body balancing her on the table as her feet kicked in mid-air, legs apart. It took all her effort to hold onto the edge of the table.

Five straight parallel dark ridges could now be seen across the pale brown bottom and once finally back in position the sixth stroke SWISH - CRACK was applied. It struck diagonally across the other five, leaving an imprint on Maya that mirrored the punishment given to Sandra.

Once Maya had finally settled down, Mary-Jane spoke. “I hope you have learnt a lesson Maya?”

“Yes Miss,” came the reply in a hushed whisper.

Maya was amazed and very relieved that she had stayed down for all six strokes. Her bottom was really sore and this was much worse than any spanking she had experienced at home, even ones with the hairbrush from grandma. She had, however, deserved it and was thankful that taking this punishment meant she did not have to explain to Professor Taylor why she wouldn't be getting the scholarship, nor to her parents as to why she no longer had a holiday job. The humiliation would have been much worse in both cases, far worse than having Geraldine and Sandra watching her squirming half-naked under the force of the cane.

Indeed, Mary-Jane, Sandra and Geraldine were also impressed. Not many girls could have stayed down while six solid strokes from the medium cane were applied, especially for a first spanking experience; definitely a good addition to the firm, they all thought.

“You may rise,” Mary-Jane said.

Maya stood up and, unlike Sandra who was still holding her knickers, she had to put hers back over her foot and then pull them up over her swollen bottom. It was a bit ungainly and humiliating, and the knickers now hugged her bottom even tighter than before, which made her squirm and squeak as the elastic bit into the ridges. Pulling her leggings up was also a torment and she wished she had dressed like Sandra.

Sandra, on the other hand, was trying not to laugh out loud at the sight of Maya squirming and trying to elegantly replace her leggings and underwear. That would have been unhelpful and inappropriate, and she would have most likely been back over the desk had she done so.

“I hope you have both learnt a valuable lesson, ladies. We must be professional at all times or we will lose our credibility,” Mary-Jane lectured them.

They were dismissed from the office and, as they left, both chastised girls were rubbing their bottoms. Mary-Jane returned the wicked cane to the top of the bookcase and gave a smile of satisfaction. It really was the right way to deal with the girls when they broke the code of conduct. Quick and effective.

Once back in Computer Services, Geraldine went straight to her office and shut the door. She had no more to say. The other girls giggled and smiled at the chastised pair giving signs of encouragement and mouthing ‘well done’. Word had clearly got out that Sandra and Maya had been to see Mary-Jane and they all knew that there would be at least two sore bottoms in their midst for the next few days.

The End

© Colin Brooks 2024

Colin is happy to be contacted and take feedback from his stories: colinbrookscp@gmail.com.