Stella Performance

The one thing I learned that day was never to go willingly over your ex's lap to take a spanking, no matter how plausible his reason was.   And if you did, not to allow him to wallop your bare bottom.   If that was too much to ask, that he was not to use a wooden spoon to wreak havoc on your poor ass.   And should you ever find yourself face down for some serious retribution, at least have the common sense to have agreed first a safe word or some other limit on how much damage he was allowed to inflict.

But first, I ought to go back and illustrate my viewpoint on this topic with a bit more detail.

I am Stella Sheridan – yes, that Stella Sheridan of sitcom fame - eldest “daughter” to oddball comic Dill Humphrey in “Humphrey’s Heights”.   The truth is that I am much, much older than some seventeen year old fluffy-head, but the Good Lord gave me a small dainty body which, with artful work from the makeup department, had kept me looking like a seventeen year old for five seasons.   And no one out there in TV land had seemed to watch the years pass without me or my TV siblings ever getting any older.

Such wonderful fantasies like time being frozen are the fodder of TV land, you know.

Anyway, I am five foot and an inch or two.   Ted was six feet and several inches or so,   Having a boyfriend who could pick me up, tuck me under his arm - face down and leg kicking – to give my bottom a swat or two has he marched us both off to the bedroom … well, it used to be very satisfactory.   In more ways than one.

For in the bedroom, he was a stick of dynamite:  very inventive, very adventurous yet always so gentle and caring.   Except when it can to butt warmings of course.   No point in gentle and caring when warming a butt (except for those very rare and very special occasions).   Anyway, you know his sort – even when he had finished he would still pound on until you caught up.   Most guys just don’t get that.

A niggle started late last year.    It just sort of arose slowly over time.   I was spending an ever increasing time at the studios.  The amount of time in Make Up had gotten progressively longer for me.   And even a half hour show meant at least four days in the studio.   Each session started with me spending up to four hours being transformed back into a seventeen year old fluffy head.   It takes a great deal of time and effort to make a sitcom look spontaneous.

The feeling that Ted had some sort of suspicions about me slowly grew on me.   Probably me messing about with Dill, he being  father figure on the set and all that.   Totally unfounded, but when did suspicions ever need to be founded on hard facts?

It was the Xmas Holiday Special that proved to be the breaking straw between Ted and me.   Just before the penultimate commercial break, the script called for me to get chased up the set stairs by my “dad”, as he swatted my rump with a fish slice.   This was considered by the suits to be a potential block buster moment.   Not since the days of Lucy had any young woman actually got spanked on screen.   There was even Emmy buzz around the set, but that was a little premature.

The first take was an eye opener for me.  As I scampered up the stairs after stamping on his foot, Dill Humphrey actually smacked my bottom with that fish slice.   A prop fish slice made out of rubber, so it stung like merry hell.  And my shrieks were the shrieks of genuine pain, not the fake shrieks the script had called for and I had rehearsed at every pre-production script reading.

“Cut!!!”   An electric bell signaled the end of the take.   “What the @!$# was that?” The director stood up and pointed accusingly at me.

“He hit me!   He really went and hit me!”   I was extremely indignant.   All turned to look at Dill, to see what explanation he would come up with for such unprofessional behavior.

“There is nothing at all in the script about SFX being added to this scene.   So I thought that without any sound effects I was supposed to whack her.   Silent spanks would be absolutely pointless.   So I added in the sound to make it work properly, for when viewers watch it.”

“Hmmm – Yeah,   You’re dead right.  We are gonna have to shoot it again, though.   Stella, they’re gonna be real whacks but you have to tone down your noise.   This is a comedy, for Chrissake.”

So that was Dill’s game was it?   Well, two can play at that.

On cue, when the cameras started rolling, I stamped down on Dill’s foot – hard.   Take that, Mister Big Shot!  Three more swats was his rapid response.   But this time they were real zingers.    “Cut!!!”   The bell sounded.   “Stella, don’t ham it up like that.   Tone down those goddam shrieks.   It's a comedy!”

It took another fifteen more takes before the director got an acceptable scene into the can.    Towards the end, my poor backside had gone into some sort of numbed shock, and then I was able to give quiet giggly shrieks and not roars of agony.   Incidentally, if you have seen that particular episode, you ought to have noticed that my stamp on Dill’s foot was totally realistic.   They had cut out those frames from the second take and used them in the final production.

But that afternoon it had taken seventeen takes to get to the final one.   Which meant there had been seventeen sets of three swipes across my rump.   Over fifty spanks with a rubber bladed fish slice.   Inevitably, my bottom turned blue from all those bruises.

When I got home, and well after supper, Ted said “Your bottom has turned blue.   Who gave you those bruises?”

“Dill Humphrey.   He spent all afternoon whacking me with a fish slice.”

“Dill Humphrey!  You and him?   I knew it!   I blasted knew it!!  I knew there was something going on between you two!”    And with that, our romance came to a very dramatic halt.  I shouted down the staircase after him that it was only a rubber fish slice, but if he did hear me, it did not halt his determined stride.   He just slammed the front door with the finality of “It’s over!!!”

Over the next few weeks we did bump into each other a couple of times, but we were very stiff and formal with each other.   He because he thought I had been fooling around behind his back with Dill, and me because I had come to realize that he was the biggest jerk ever.

And then came that Sunday afternoon, the one where he turned up at my place, unannounced and uninvited.

“Can we talk?”

I opened the door to let him in.   “I don’t think there is much to be said.   You being such a big jerk, and all.”

We went into the kitchen.   I pointed at the fridge.  “Beer or water?”

“Water would be just fine.”

I opened a fresh bottle and poured him a glass.

“I saw you on that Emmy contender show last night.”   He emptied the glass with one gulp.

“My show won’t get any Emmies.   This year its ABC's turn.   They've got a couple of shows in the running.   One of them will sweep the field.   That’s how it works.”

“Sure.   But I did get to see that scene they showed last night.   You know, that scene.   The one where Dill Humphrey whacked you with a fish slice.   It was all part of the plot.   Wow.”

“Wow?   Such keen acumen.    You’re a right little Sherlock.”

“Don’t be so sarcastic.   It doesn’t become you.   Anyway, you never told me.   All you said was that he whacked you, not that it was some part of some stupid script.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to …”

“So do tell me.  Did you want me gone?   Is that why you let me go without any protest?

“:Good God No!  Lovers like you do not come a dime a dozen.   I had hopes.   I had absolutely no intention of breaking up with you.”

“And yet its entirely your fault.   Chucking me out without letting on.   Which makes it entirely your fault.”

“My fault?!  It was you who slammed the effing front door shu…”

He interrupted me by the simple act of taking me by one hand to pull me towards him in a familiar way.   This had always started one of his “damned good spankings”.   Not that I recall there being any other kind.   It was that they all sort of started this way.   He has a right hand that makes you sit up and take good notice – real well – when he slaps your bottom with it.   It is a big hand.   And on a tight butt, you definitely sat up and took notice.

“Ted.  No.   Don’t do this.”

I was across his lap.   This was not right.   It was all his goddamned fault, not mine.

Uh-oh.   My skirt had been pulled up.   My panties tucked down.

“Ted!  It was NOT my fault!”   My bare bottom was staring up at him.   The omens were not good.

“Oh my god no” I whispered to myself.  He had reached across the counter and picked up a wooden spoon from the jar by the stove.   The biggest and heaviest one that I owned.

“Ted!”

That was the last intelligible word I managed to utter for some time.

He peppered my butt alternately, up and down, back and forth, a barrage of tight harsh stings that merged together into one network of sheer agony.   And then repeated the sequence over and over to make sure that I got his message.   He kept going for what seemed like hours, even though it was probably only ten minutes or so of actual spanking time.

I kicked.   And then I yelled.   And then I cried.  But to no avail.   He was a man on a mission and that mission was to make my backside unsittable.

Eventually I lay quite still and quite quiet.  He had filled my buttocks with all the pain they could ever take, and I had reached the point where I had no need and no will to fight back.   And no more strength.   I was one well-done young lady.

The smacking stopped.   I felt his lips gently kiss my right cheek and then the left one.   It caused tingling like electric fires flickering against my raw nerve ends.   The bastard sure knew how to turn me on.

He rolled me over and sat me upright.

I looked him in his dark green eyes.   “That was savage, you brute.  What did I do to deserve it?”

“Your ass is now bluer that wen Dill Humphrey had finished with it.   Which means that he no longer owns it.”

I kissed him a deep, slow kiss.   “It never was his.   So take me to bed and make me better.”

“Ah.   That was my plan along.  I even brought you some massage cream that has gotten some of that aloe in it.   If I had it wrong, and you had sent me packing for a second time, well, at least you would have gotten yourself one hellum slapped butt before you got around to doing something that wicked.”

He smiled that way he does, and I knew that I was going to grind his bones before the hour was out.   And he mine, by way of return.   He picked up to carry me upstairs but this time face up so we could continue to exchange nuzzling kisses.

Oh – and there is one other thing you should bear in mind about not going over an ex's knee to get walloped.   Only do it if you don’t want him to continue to be an ex any longer.   Which is such a profound thought that is almost worthy of being a life motto.