In Lieu of Flowers
by Jack Lennox

* * * * * * *

Ginger O'Farrell remembered it as possibly the worst day of her life.

Old Sawmill Bob was snoring to wake the neighbors. Roused from a vaguely troubling dream, it was the first sound Ginger heard that morning, her first thought that it was going to be another crappy day. Again waking to the realization that the day held little promise. Again waking to the realization that she was soon to be sixty years old. She'd discovered a dry fondness for saying she didn't feel a day over 58. Bob would then cheerfully tell her she could pass for many years younger than that.

Ginger O'Farrell wasn't consoled.

She turned in bed, "accidentally" giving her husband a little kick in the process. A big kick in the ass would have been more satisfying. He stirred without waking, one last respiratory expulsion before a blessed break from the mating call of elephants. Speaking of mating calls, it was Valentine's Day. Big deal, she thought. She considered the back of his silvered head. So predictable. Flowers ...and a card. That was Old Bob O'Farrell. Always with the flowers. Sweet but b-o-r-i-n-g.

The snoring started up again, and she figured she may as well get out of bed and face the morning. With an absent mind she brushed her teeth determined not to notice any new gray hairs or wrinkles. She'd been blessed with a thick dark mane and good skin and she wasn't about to give them up gracefully. So it was a daily battle for their survival, she despaired, realizing she'd already taken the first steps towards losing the war.

Ginger had a taste for Shredded Wheat that morning. Unfortunately, it's not quite as good without milk, an item she'd forgotten to pick up at the store the previous evening. The mind was going; she was sure of it. After a scrounge in the freezer she was able to put together a couple pieces of buttered toast to go with her coffee, but it wasn't Shredded Wheat. Munching, she flipped on the tube to Regis and Kathy Lee ...or Regis and Somebody, she wasn't sure. All the women on the show that morning were young and beautiful and tedious. Coincidentally, there was an ad for Shredded Wheat. Yep...it looked more appetizing with milk.

Since Bob had retired last year, his schedule had shifted. She knew he wouldn't be up for several hours. Mornings were typically spent on the computer, and Ginger began with her daily crossword. After a cup of caffeine she could sail through the toughest puzzle, but even that wasn't working. Her head was in a fog, words peaking through clouds on the tip of her tongue, to torture a metaphor. Feeling stupid, she got online and began to check through her list of bookmarks: reading emails, catching up on world news, visiting a site where people liked to talk about spanking. She wasn't exactly sure what had drawn her there. Adult spanking? She was sure she didn't want to engage in anything like it. No, that wouldn't be nearly mundane enough for the O'Farrells. In the last month she'd met some interesting people but felt the outsider.

Later that morning she scribbled a note for Bob and left to do some shopping and stop at the library. A few books seemed like a good idea, as a day spent curled up in bed reading was about the best she could hope for. Her day got worse on the trip home.

"Do you know how fast you were going, Ma'am?" The cop had a smirk. Maybe he'd never seen a middle-aged woman driving a Corvette before? She knew she'd been doing fifty-five in a thirty-zone, but then that's why people buy Vets. It's not like it was a school zone or something. Didn't Kojak have more important things to do than watch people driving? She figured there was a time she could have flirted her way out of the ticket, but this guy wasn't about to budge.

Ginger entered fuming, throwing her library books in a scattered jumble on the loveseat next to the living room window. Her husband was sitting on the couch and looked out from behind his newspaper. "What's wrong, Hon?"

"What's wrong?" she nearly shouted. "I got a bleeping speeding ticket; that's what's wrong!"

Bob felt he should look remorseful for his wife's ill fortune. She stood with arms crossed, staring daggers. Somehow it was his fault, she knew it. If he'd gotten his 62-year-old butt out of bed on Valentine's and taken her for a nice breakfast, none of this would have happened.

Setting his paper aside, Bob patted a spot on the couch inviting her to sit. He'd adopted a kind of puppy-dog look that Ginger often found exasperating but also fairly irresistible. She sat, but in a huff.

She must have looked like she needed a hug. Bob turned, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her face to his chest. As he gently rubbed her back, she remained stiff but didn't fight it.

"How fast were you going, my sweet?"

"No faster than usual," she mumbled into his shirt.

"In other words, too fast." He tried to make it not sound like an accusation.

She pulled away and sat with arms crossed belligerently. "So?"

"So you need to slow down. Ever since you got that car, everywhere you go is an emergency."

"What do you care? I could fly that car to the moon, and you probably wouldn't realize I was missing." Ginger felt a lump in her throat, willed herself not to cry. "At least until you needed laundry done. Then there'd be an emergency."

Bob looked hurt. She hated making him feel bad, but dammit, she didn't know if she could take this any longer. She needed more. She wasn't getting any younger.

"Maybe I haven't been the best husband lately," he admitted under his breath. They sat in silence.

After several moments, he spoke. "I don't want you driving like that."

She replied with a snort. "Let's not make a big deal out of it. I'm pissed enough as it is." She refused to even look at him. What could he do about it, anyway?

An answer to the question flitted through her mind so quickly she didn't catch it. What she managed to hold on to, though, was an answer to a different question. It had been nagging at her when that insufferable cop pulled her over. The man behind the counter at the library who'd checked out her books had looked familiar, but she couldn't place him ...and in her mind, flowers ...something about flowers --- lots of them. Now she knew. She'd never met the man before, but rather he had reminded her of someone, another older "gentleman" she'd encountered long ago. She hadn't thought about it in years. How strange that the memory of the incident should suddenly appear in its entirety as if dropped whole into place from somewhere above.

"What?" Bob wanted to know what she was thinking.

"Nothing." She wasn't sure whether it was a memory to be sharing. It seemed to be another's life she was remembering.

Ginger continued to stare at nothing across the room. Hard thoughts escaped as soft words. "It must have been 1968."

She thought she was 22 at the time; simple addition made that the year. She was living with her sister in a comfortable flat outside London not far from where she'd been raised. Her best friend, Caroline, was there. Whatever happened to her? She had no idea, but Ginger remembered they were getting ready for a Kinks concert that night. It was the sixties, and kinky wasn't just for perverts anymore. The two were going dressed up as cheeky schoolgirls, their uniforms just a bit too tight in all the right places. They were changing when Ginger caught a glimpse of the faded but distinct purple lines laid tram-like across her friend's bare bottom. It was shocking. She realized it had to be the result of a caning. But how? Why? Caroline wasn't a teenage schoolgirl, but a very independent 22 going on 30. When it came to bleeding ripe anarchy, Ginger had a hard time even keeping up with her.

The explanation was no less surprising. Caroline had been paid good money for taking her stripes. An older guy she'd met -- the name, George, bubbled up like a bad aftertaste -- was the proud publisher of a magazine for the discriminating lecher called Gentleman's Preference. Ginger was told that on its pulpy pages were featured the black and white images of young women, stripped naked and soundly thrashed. Didn't it hurt? she asked her amazing friend. Damned straight it bloody well hurt, but a quid is a bloody quid.

Caroline offered to introduce her to the upwardly mobile world of underground publishing, but Ginger quickly passed. The thought of it didn't... pass, that is. She couldn't get it out of her mind. Sure, she could use the money. She had a nice place to stay, and her parents were helping with college, but waiting tables three nights a week wasn't exactly affording her the life for which as a child she'd grown accustomed. The money, though, was not the root of her seduction. It wasn't the interest consuming her.

As a child, she was mostly a well-behaved little girl. It was only the rare occasion when her mother had to spank her with that awful old slipper. Those were the least favorite moments of her childhood, but for some odd reason it didn't alter the fact that the subject of spanking fascinated Ginger in a pleasing way she didn't understand. Adolescence had been spent in confusion about it, her fantasies dark secrets hidden under bed sheets and by the black of night. She didn't want to admit it, even to herself, but the idea of a "thrashing" from an enthusiastic gentleman seemed a rather intoxicating, though scary, proposition. It wasn't something she could ask of a boyfriend. Much too embarrassing. She began to consider seriously that a professional modeling job might be just the antiseptic condition needed to allow for her fantasy to be safely realized.

She was standing at the back entrance of a shabby commercial building in Soho. In her hand, an overnight bag containing the schoolgirl outfit and other wardrobe items she'd been asked to bring. Caroline had pushed the buzzer for her, the result a shrill pealing that caused Ginger to quickly survey the neighborhood for anyone who might be wise to the nature of their mortifying business. She willed her body to stop trembling. Caroline must have noticed because she asked if everything was okay. Ginger forced a laugh. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. She was determined to be as tough as her friend. On the other hand, if she'd come alone, she was fairly certain she'd by then have turned and left and not looked back. T

he walk up two flights of stairs was a grim march. She didn't mention the faint, sickly sweet smell of the place, but neither could she ignore it. Her senses heightened, Ginger noticed every crack, every stain, every blank yellowed door suggesting some likely scheme once hatched but now laid vacant. No problem... really. She'd been raised solid middle-class ...Squaresville, and she didn't want to be reminded of it. This was the real city. Real life. Power to the people, Man!

They were greeted at Blanchard Publishing by a thirty-something dude named George. Ginger's dislike for him was almost instantaneous. First of all, the guys she liked had longer hair, not short and greased back like some hoodlum from the 50s. He wasn't cool, but rather leering, his crook-toothed smile on the wrong side of familiar. She'd been told that George doesn't spank, but rather "directs". A relief, but she couldn't help wondering who would be her co-star in this sordid drama. She was hoping he wouldn't be her age and good looking. This was embarrassing enough. An older, distinguished gentleman would be much better. Someone she'd likely never see again. Certainly more realistic if she was going to be punished like a young girl.

The large office was a mess. Partitioned into several makeshift areas for writing, shooting, and whatever it is they did to put out a magazine. Lots of paper products scattered and stacked. Lights and camera equipment everywhere. Piles of puzzles that she would never care to solve.

In a back room she signed papers. She was too nervous to do anything but scan them mindlessly; only later did she think they must have been a model release form and some liability legalese making it clear she was accepting authentic corporal punishment for the purpose of adult entertainment. No wonder she was nervous.

She was then introduced to Henry. The older, distinguished gentleman had appeared silently out of seemingly nowhere. Her strict, traditional disciplinarian. Ginger might have thought somebody upstairs had been listening to her prayers, but Henry was not exactly the relief she'd hoped for. She'd asked for older, not seventy. At least he looked 70. Not frail, but a beefy man with a large jowly face and balding gray dome. He could have been a former Prime Minister for all she knew, but despite his formal attire, he looked more the proletariat. She wanted to call him Jeeves. All that might have been fine if he smiled. Even a tiny bit of warmth would have helped, but old Henry was a stiff wind from the far north, shaking her small hand with a grim formality.

The scene was explained. She'd been sent home from school with a bad report. It was only her bad luck that her grandfather had been left in charge while her parents vacationed. It was only the discriminating collector's good luck that gramps was old-school, a throwback to days when girls who brought home bad reports got in real old-fashioned trouble.

The first series of shots were easy. Simple poses. Ginger in uniform, arriving home, report in hand and looking pensive. Henry, sitting at his desk, he and the furniture looking as if both had been carved from the same wood. Ginger, handing the damning report to her impassive guardian. Henry, pointing sternly in the direction of Ginger's room. Ginger leaving her grandfather, head bowed in shame for her terrible deed. Modeling wasn't bad work, really... mostly just waiting for scenes to be set and lit to George's satisfaction. She guessed he was quite the artist *gag* but her mind was preoccupied by the prospect of her imminent future. She just kept telling herself that, papers signed or not, she could walk out any time she wanted. The initial scenes in "her room" were less comfortable. It wasn't the decor, although she thought they could have backed off on the flowers; the wallpaper was crawling with them, and the bedspread clashed with another fussy floral pattern. First, the clothes had to start coming off as she prepared for the punishment promised. She chided herself for being such a prude. As a girl who'd enthusiastically embraced Free Love, it's not like she hadn't been seen naked before. Everyone looked to be preoccupied with their work: obviously a familiarity with nude modeling an occupational given. Once she got over her initial modesty, she was posing unabashedly. Still, something about all those flowers creeped her out; she could almost smell them, a cloying aura permeating this seedy Soho arboretum.

As she awaited the arrival of her strict guardian, her poses were to reflect a demonstrable level of dread. It didn't require much acting on Ginger's part. In fact, it allowed her to express freely what she would have otherwise tried to conceal. Perched on the edge of her bed, face in hands, she felt an agonizing vulnerability. Thin pajama bottoms her only cover at that point, she sat with an acute awareness of her bare skin under the soft cotton. She hadn't forgotten the sight of Caroline's cane-striped backside. The thought of a caning, something she'd never experienced, made her a little faint. The anticipation had tortured her imagination all that week. Funny how things rarely turn out the way you expect them to. All that fretting and she wasn't to receive a caning after all. She'd held the long, slim, clothes brush in her own hand. It was as solid as a rock, but maybe it was better than getting the cane. She still wasn't sure she was going to stick around to find out.

Each pose was bringing her closer to the scenario's climax, George milking every angle of her discomfort. Take all the time you need there, Director Hitchcock. She'd lost her sense of urgency. Kneeling on the bed, she'd lowered her pajama pants, her bottom now exposed not for cheesecake but for a purpose not so sweet. Jeeves was standing over her with that hardwood brush, and he had yet to crack anything resembling a smile. Ginger had to excuse herself to go to the bathroom.

It certainly wasn't the largest or cleanest bathroom she'd ever used, but a temporary safe haven, nonetheless. She could have hidden in there all day, but instead found herself laying face-down on flowered sheets, her very bare bottom raised by flowered pillows. She was frightened, but she'd made up her mind that she wasn't going to chicken out. If Caroline could take it, then she could bloody well take it, too. It was just a spanking. If children can manage it...

Her head was turned to the side, her eyes directed to that stubborn brush. Her conscious mind was centered on where her body had been raised for punishment, and it occurred to her that it was possible to feel a lot more naked than when just having your clothes off. To manage her nerves, she attempted a little bravado. She wanted to know if these old sods could explain why, in the service of realism, she was nude. Was the spanking to punish a naughty schoolgirl ...or to give gramps the rare woodie? George patiently explained the obvious. It was a men's magazine. Realistically, men liked to see naked girls. After all, the quality publication was called, Gentleman's Preference. She suggested he invest in a dictionary and look up the word, gentleman. Her response seemed to get a good chuckle from everyone in the room except old stone-face. Seemed Henry must have lost his sense of humor sometime around the War of 1812.

The time had come for her spanking, and the room was silent. It was the money shot, so to speak. The discriminating connoisseur of this underground piece of pulp wanted to see marks, and could discriminate between the real and the fake. Ginger continued to hold on to the notion that she could still back out at any moment. If the spanking had lasted long enough for her to recover her sense of self-preservation, she probably would have left so fast she wouldn't have had time to grab her payment.

"How bad did it hurt?" Bob asked. He gaped at his wife of 17 years with a new sense of wonderment.

Ginger had stopped talking, the memories no longer welcome. "I had the bruises for weeks," she stated quietly. It had hurt plenty. Worse than anything she'd ever experienced. Her curiosity for corporal punishment more than satisfied, it would be almost 38 years before any fascination for the subject resurfaced. Why lately it had re-emerged she didn't know. A cold-hearted stranger had held her down, and for those awful moments it had felt like she was being set on fire. How foolish had she been? She tried to read her husband's reaction. She had no idea what he might think of her now.

"What did they pay you?" He still looked incredulous. "Two hundred pounds," she answered, wondering why the question was relevant.

"You let some old codger beat you black and blue for a measly two hundred pounds?" There was no ridicule in his voice. He reached out and squeezed her knee gently.

"It seemed like a lot at the time," she sighed, placing her hand over his. "And that old codger was probably not so much older than you are, O' Ancient One."

"And you don't see me spanking naked 22-year-olds, do you?"

"Not if you want to live to tell about it."

Bob pulled his wife back into his arms hugging her tightly. "I didn't know you were such a wild one, sweetie. I wish I'd met you back then."

When Ginger looked up there were tears in her eyes.

Her concerned husband didn't know what was wrong.

"You're right. I'm not that person anymore." A tear broke loose and rolled down her cheek. "She could have knocked your socks off," said Ginger like a threat. "She had her whole life ahead of her, was willing to try anything. ...I'm not wild, Bob. I'm not young," she sobbed.

Bob pulled her close again, kissed her on the mouth. "You can still knock my socks off." With a smile he cupped her damp cheek in his hand. "You just got a speeding ticket in your Corvette. That's pretty wild..." Ginger managed a smile. She really was glad they were having this conversation. "...and you've got another thing coming if you think you're too old for a spanking, young lady. I told you I don't want you driving like that, and I meant it."

Ginger forced herself to meet his penetrating gaze. He was serious. She didn't know whether to laugh or be mortified. The threat of a spanking from her husband was the craziest thing she'd heard in ages. He told her to stand up, and she obeyed. Her head was buzzing with elusive possibilities. Her body was lead filled with helium. At that moment, she had no will of her own, could only stand as if paralyzed while he unsnapped her jeans then eased down the zipper. All business, he wasted no time grasping the elastic of her pants at the hips and pealing them right down to her ankles. Her underpants were similarly lowered, and before she knew it, she'd been pulled face-down across her husband's lap, her bare bottom high.

She still couldn't think straight, but the feel of his hand on her underside was luxurious. He was squeezing and kneading the flesh as if he were discovering it for the first time.

"I'm sorry I have to do this, young lady, but it is very long overdue. Things are going to change around here."

The sting was a shock. Not that it was bad, only that she had no idea. She had no idea that she could be so turned on. She had no idea that Bob was this capable. He was really spanking her. Docile old Bob. She wasn't frightened. Her first husband never actually struck her but had a menacing temper. She despised that fear and would never live under anything like it again. She knew Bob would never harm her; it just wasn't in his nature.

"Am I making myself clear, Missy?"

The heat building over and under her was liquid, flowing, igniting small fires where for too long she'd been cool.

"Yes, Sir." The word sounded strange out of her mouth, but it felt so right for the moment. Her husband was in control now. He was making the decisions. He was performing the actions. The spanks had gotten harder, even more solid, as strong and dependable as the man who loved her.

Ginger was moved. She kicked. She squirmed. She gave voice to silent demons. Bob directed, and as her body moved in rhythm to the sharp direction of his hand, she was alive ...and she was young.

And it turned out to be a very good day after all.