Harriet's Arrangement

The Scrabble Paddle

Tom's promise – or warning – was made good almost two weeks later. The two of them were playing Scrabble and, unusually, Tom was winning – by quite some way. Harriet, who had not been in the best of moods anyway at the end of the day thanks to some stressful last-minute problems ahead of the Newcastle conference, was not taking to losing this particular game very gracefully.

As she totted up Tom's latest score, she h'mphed quietly, muttering to herself about how Greek letters really ought not to be allowed in English games of Scrabble, and she heard Tom clear his throat in a way that she had come to recognise as a sign that he was not feeling particularly warmly towards how she was behaving or acting at that moment. She glanced up and saw him with raised eyebrows.

"You're heading the right way for a warmed behind, young lady," he said, mildly, but with enough meaning to make her drop her eyes and mumble an apology, "Stop being such a sore loser," he said, acknowledging her apology with a nod.

"Yes, Sir," she said, fiddling with her own letters trying to work out what she could possibly do with this many vowels. She sighed as she eventually placed an A and an E the other side of a T to make an unimpressive score, and couldn't help but h'mph again as she wrote down her total and reached for some more letters.

"Hattie..." Tom said in a sing-song warning sort of voice.

"Sorry," she said, and then seconds later as he placed six of his seven letters across a Triple Word score, "Really?! How is that fair?!"

"Harriet Kennedy," Tom said sharply, very unusually using her full name, "That's enough. Go and wait in the bedroom, please, and find the paddle."

She felt her heart skitter. "The paddle? Tom, I mean, Sir, I'm sorry, I –"

He silenced her with a look. "I warned you, and gave you a second chance," he said softly, "You've earned yourself a thorough paddling, and I hope it'll teach you to stop taking these things so seriously. It's just a game, Hattie," he said, his tone both exasperated and gentle at the same time, "Go on, do as you're told, please."

Defeatedly she got up, knowing he was right: she was being really quite childish about this. The paddle wasn't one of her favourites – he'd only used it once before, and she hadn't made a secret of how much she'd disliked the sensation. He'd mostly been breaking her in every couple of days, introducing her to his ways of doing things, exploring her limits and letting her experience his various implements. They hadn't yet tried the cane, because she was a little too nervous of it still, and he hadn't pushed her. His leather paddle was large and teardrop-shaped, with stitching around the edges that doubled the sting when it made impact. Last time she'd received the paddle, she'd been over his lap, and it had only been four reasonably gentle swats to introduce her to its bite. She had enjoyed it the least of all the things they'd tried so far: his belt, a leather tawse, a wooden hairbrush and, the one she'd thought had probably excited her the most so far, a flogger, which she'd learned in this instance was several strips of leather tied together.

As she pulled the heavy leather implement out of it's neat place in the wardrobe and placed it on the bed, waiting nervously for Tom to appear, she wondered what a punishment paddling would be like, and how different Tom would be as he delivered it.

He was in the doorway moments later, his expression one of disappointment, Harriet thought, which made her feel guilty and embarrassed. "I'd like you naked, please, Hattie," he said, his voice firm but gentle – an undercurrent of reassurance mixed in that she heard and appreciated. Silently she slipped her clothes off, folded them neatly and stood nervously, her eyes on the floor.

"Look at me, baby girl," he said. She did. "I think you know this is different to what we've done so far. We've been playing and exploring a bit: this is proper discipline, because I really don't like how you were being out there. Do you understand that?"