The front of the used bookstore looked tidy enough, books all neatly arranged on shelves, most of them published within the past few decades. But the back was a different story. There were no bookshelves, just ailes formed from teetering walls of books. One had to be careful when perusing, and ask oneself if that particular faded spine sticking out of a great pile was worth one’s life. It was dusty and felt dim, the towering stands impossible to keep truly clean, and the lights seemingly obscured by the great towers of yellowed paper and worn covers.
Between these almost forgotten remnants of past eras wandered a young woman. She was short, and looked rather squat, though her baggy, poorly fitted sweat pants and rumpled shirt obscured her figure in the most unflattering way possible. Her long brown hair was a mess of tangles that obscured her face, and hinted at hideous deformities, though in those brief moments when she pushed her hair back to look at a spine more closely, one could see a cute, youthful face and smooth, clear, pale skin. Thick glasses rested on her nose, and they seemed to be the only thing that enhanced, rather than detracted, from the girl’s appearance.
She bent over to grab a book, and her sweat pants begrudgingly molded to her bottom, revealing for the briefest of moments a bottom large, round, protruding and soft, not the flat, lifeless sag normally created by those pants.
She eased the book out from the bottom of its tower with a practised ease, though one eye remained on the many pounds of paper above it. A crash and a yelp from somewhere else in that dim space made her freeze: a terrible reminder of her fate if she were not careful. She waited a moment in the tense silence, until it broke with a string of foul language. The girl let her breath out, and she eased the book free. The stack shifted and swayed, but did not fall.
The girl blew the dust off the book, and eyed its cover. It had no words, merely faded designs that hinted at vines of ivy, and all the phases of the moon. She eased the book open, and was greeted by the title page: Rituals for the Granting of Wishes in Good Faith. She flipped to the introduction and skimmed the first few pages.
The author bemoaned the current stat of wish-making magic, vigorously criticizing all the “monkey paws, pentagrams and other nonsense that treat the Fae as inherently adverserial, rather than playful, a little mischievous, but ultimately kind and helpful.” She warned that the elementals could be fey (they are of course the Fae), but so long as you treated them with basic human (or Fae) decency, they would help you. Not necessarily in the way you’d expect, but help you they will. And with none of this bad faith “twisting your words and murdering your son garbage. Such is the mark of an enslaved Fae, lashing out at those who would deny Her Her holy Freedom.”
The girl skimmed over the Table of Contents and found a Ritual for Life Improvement. She flipped to that, and skimmed over the introduction. “A Ritual for helping you get out of a rut, find the courage to try new things, and break your own bad habits before they choke you to death.”
She looked through the process. Seemed simple enough. She hugged the book to her chest (briefly forcing her frumpy shirt to mold to her chest, and revealing that said chest was almost as generous as her now-once-again obscured backside) and wove back to the front of the store.
The owner of the store, a frail, cheerful old lady smiled when she saw the girl approach. “Ahh, Lillian. And what’s the self-help book du jour?”
Lillian blushed and looked down. Her tangled hair fell down over her face as she mumbled something incoherent. She set the book on the counter and stared at her feet.
“Ohhh, this little number,” said the owner. “I had almost forgotten about it. No, that’s not true. You can never forget about it. But it’s been a long time since I thought about it. I always preferred this style of magic, myself. So…cheerful, and hopeful. None of that fear-festooned, soul twisting nonsense that’s always been so much more popular. It never really gained traction, because very few sorcerers (and sorceresses) ever truly understood it. Its a subtle, indirect thing. No demon princes snapping their fingers and instantly smiting your enemies. But it has a quiet power to it, mark my words. Quiet as a winter dawn, and as irresistible as a young river fresh with snowmelt leaping down stones and cliffs, ready to begin its long, beautiful journey to the sea.”
Lillian nodded along, and handed over her credit card.
The owner scanned the card, and pulled out a battered leather book sleeve. She slid the book in almost reverently, and handed it and the card back over. There was a twinkle in her eye, one that Lillian barely caught and didn’t understand. “Normally, I don’t know that I would sell that precious little thing. Honestly, I don’t how it got into the stacks. But I think that’s what you’ve been looking for all this time. I’ve always felt a bit of dissapointment every time you came up here with some nonsense regurgitated by one of those innumerable, unscrupulous hope-peddlers. Really, I don’t understand how I keep ending up with such odious books. I used to do a better job of vetting all those big boxes of books people keep leaving me, but I’m getting old, and my eyesight is failing and those atrocious things sell well, as odious as it is. Anyway, always felt a bit of dissapointment, and I think I know why. Everytime, I think a part of me was hoping you’d come back with this cute little thing. Anyway, here. This is the sleeve that the book was in when it first came to me.”
Lillian nodded along as the old woman rambled, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. She snatched the book, and scurried from the store.
If she hadn’t been so quick to leave, she might have heard a final, whispered comment from the old lady. “Take care of her, Melody.”
Lillian hopped on her bike and peddled home, home being a cute little bedroom in a cute little house owned and lived in by a towering monster of a woman. The owner, Gertrude, had to be over six feet tall (Lillian thought that of a lot of people, truth be told), but with Gertrude, she just had to be. And she was built like a linebacker, with hands the size of dinner plates, and arms bigger than an oak tree’s trunk. Yes, that’s what Lillian thought of when she first saw Gertrude: an oak tree. Tall, and powerful, and kind of terrifying (well, an oak tree was terrifying if you thought of climbing it, not that Lillian ever thought of climbing Gertrude). Anyway, she was big and scary, and renting out a spare bedroom when Lillian came to town. It was cheap, it had a nice view of a pretty neighborhood, and Lillian was pretty sure she’d accidentally burned down her last place when she tried to cook. She couldn’t be certain and the police ruled it an accident, but Lillian knew she’d burned the ever loving crap out of her spaghetti that night, and not an hour later the place was on fire and falling over. The point was, Gertrude was a magnificent cook.
Gertrude was in her favorite place on a crisp fall Sunday morning when Lillian got back: a lawn chair underneath an ancient and towering oak tree in her front lawn. The tree was a brilliant yellow-gold, and those leaves that had already fallen had created a yellow-gold carpet. Gertrude’s chair seemed immersed in sunlight and clear blue sky, even when bathed in the tree’s slackening shade.
Gertrude leapt to her feet, putting her small (well, small in her large hands) book down and giving Lillian a jaunty wave. Despite her powerful build, there was a softness to her as well, with ample (and then some) curves in all the right places, and an ageless, mature beauty about her. “Hello Lilly, did you find anything interesting at the bookstore today?”
Lillian mumbled something and gave Gertrude a flicker of a smile from behind her hair. She parked her bike against the front porch, but did so rather hastily. She was halfway up the stairs when her bike fell over with a loud clatter that made her jump. She threw a quick glance at Gertrude, and scurried back inside.
“Don’t forget, I need your rent,” said Gertrude as she fixed Lillian’s bicycle. “It’s almost a week late again!”
Lillian mumbled something and hurried upstairs. She flung open her door and stumbled in, hastily closing it behind her. She took a deep breath, her nose wrinkling at the smell, and pushed her hair away. She hastily brushed aside scattered clothing, and wrappers, and used soda cans. She really should clean all this up, and she should have picked up her bike, and talked to Gertrude or something. And paid her rent. Lillian winced. She really needed to get better about that. Later. She could do that later. Right now, she had a ritual to perform.
She got on her hands and knees and slid a small suitcase out from underneath her bed. She pulled it open to reveal chalk and candles and dried herbs and a (fake) rat skull. None of the other magic she’d ever tried had worked (becaus magic wasn’t real! Why did she keep doing this?), but maybe this time?
She flipped to the appropriate ritual and read the directions more closely. She groaned. This one needed a mirror. She hated her reflection, and this one demanded she look at it the whole time. Lillian sighed and pulled off the blanket she’d thrown over the mirror on the back of the door, cringing as she saw her dark-haired mop. She averted her eyes, and hastily got to work. Fortunately, this ritual did not demand she be “skyclad” or whatever. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to go through with it if she had to be naked and looking at herself in the mirror the whole time.
She worked long into the afternoon, carefully drawing the unclosed circle, practicing the bits she was supposed to chant, and trying to figure out her Request for Improvement, as the ritual called it. The ritual placed no restrictions on her request, save it be said in a single breath caressing an oak leaf(an oak leaf! Forgot about that!). Lillian scurried downstairs, ran outside, snatched up the first oak leaf she saw, and ran back in before Gertrude could say anything.
Fortunately, this ritual did not demand it be the middle of the night, or storming or anything. In fact, it seemed to imply it worked best on cheerful, sunny days of any season.
Finally, as the setting sun bathed her room in gold, Lillian lit the candles and started to chant. At the end, she picked up the oak leaf, took a deep breath and said “I want…”
She started to panic. Now that it’d come to it, she couldn’t remember the words she’d painstakingly put together. And she couldn’t have any notes, no other “tree material” was allowed inside the circle, and paper was made from trees right? Hastily, before her breath ran out, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “to be better, and to give Gertrude everything she wants and needs from me.”
As Lillian said “me” the puff of her breath knocked the oak leaf out of her hand, and it fluttered to the ground, landing on the jagged, stick figure oak tree Lillian had drawn inside the circle. For the smallest of instants, so fast Lillian was convinced it was her imagination, the scribbled oak glowed gold and flared into a painting so gorgeous and so lifelike, it took Lillian’s breath away.
Lillian picked up the oak leaf and carefully tucked it into a plastic bag, before reverently putting the oak leaf on her bedside table.
Lillian caught a whiff of something delicious, followed by Gertrude’s shouted voice. “Lillian, you want to join me for dinner?”
Lillian squeaked happily and hastily cleaned up her magic, shoving it in the suitcase and shoving the suitcase back under the bed. She threw a blanket over the scribbled oak tree, and hurried downstairs. She swayed a bit and clutched her head, feeling light heated for a moment. Shouldn’t have skipped lunch.
That night (err, well, early morning), after quite a few bracing hours of playing her favorite dungeon crawl, Lillian crawled into some pajamas and collapsed into bed, asleep before she hit the pillow. She had felt strangely tired that night, even after eating, and probably should have gone to bed hours ago, but video gaaaaames…
The ziploced oak leaf glowed with a warm, soft golden radiance. The light swirled on it, and sprung off. What looked almost like a firefly bounced back and forth above Lillian’s head, almost…thoughtful. It pulsed briefly, zipped through her drawers, and through the crack between the door and the floor, leaving a trail of melodious laughter.
Lillian jerked awake to the blaring of her phone. She snatched it up and swore. She had twenty minutes before her morning meeting. She must have been snoozing her alarm in her sleep. She hastened out of bed and bolted into the bathroom. One rapidfire shower later, and a breakfast bar shoved into her mouth, and Lillian was pawing through a laundry basket overflowing with clean laundry. Just need some clean underwear and–Lillian’s pawing grew more and more frantic, her eyes widenening with panic.
Finally, she held up a lacy white thong by her fingertips, holding it like a poisonous snake. Gone were her shapeless, frumpled granny panties, replaced by thongs in all the colors of the rainbow. She stared at the risque underwear in utter mystification. She didn’t own any thongs! Oh sure, she’d occasionally thought about buying a few pairs, when she kind of wanted to feel sexy, but just the thought of entering Vicki’s Mysteries or a similar store had filled her with utter humiliation. How did these… Well, she would just have to go without panties, and get some more at the store. She pulled out a pair of grey sweatpants from the same laundry basket, but her eyes kept returning to the discarded thong.
She could just try it on right? That wouldn’t hurt, and it’s not like there was anyone around to laugh at her. She picked it up with shaking fingers, giggled a little bit and slid it on. She could feel the tiny string in back nestle in between her large cheeks. It…erm…certainly wasn’t the most comfortable of underwear.
She glanced over her shoulder, planning to peer down, but caught her reflection in the mirror. And stared. Gone was the flat, frumpy bottom underneath shapeless granny panties. The thong framed her big, protruding bottom, providing (or maybe revealing? enhancing?) a soft, jiggly roundness. A small voice in the back of her head whispered that maybe, just maybe, her bottom looked better than the thin models who often modeled them. She quickly squashed that stupid thought. Still, she rocked her hips back and forth, biting her lip shyly, feeling just a little bit sexy for the first time in her life.
The moment passed, and she scoffed at herself, turning away from the mirror, but not before catching a glimpse of her love handles, and other rolls. She pulled on her sweat pants, while muttering mockeries at herself. Her muttered mockeries trailed off, replaced by grunts of effort. These sweat pants were a fair bit more difficult to pull on than she remembered. The soft fabric clung to her legs, and she had to wiggle her hips a little bit to pull the strangely tight fabric over her generous rump. She frowned. No way did she gain that much weight overnight. She hadn’t eaten that much of Gertrude’s (incredible) chili.
In another strange moment of clarity, Lillian glanced over her shoulder, and caught the sight of her rump in the mirror, and stared. Her sweatpants molded to her giant bottom, smoothing and drawing the eye to the soft curves. Her bottom was large yes, but round and soft, and even looked a bit firm with the tight cotton giving it a bit of support. Nothing like the shapeless sag she was used to seeing. She shifted, watching her bottom ripple with the movement.
She caught a glimpse of her clock in the mirror and the moment shattered. She threw on a shirt, and scrambled to her computer. She was late.
Two impatient minutes of logging onto her work accounts, and she was in her daily standup meeting (thank God for remote work). Her microphone was on, but of course her camera was off.
“H-hey, sorry I’m late,” she said in her soft voice. “Got a bit caught up in stuff, and lost track of time.”
“No problem,” said her boss in a calm, non-judgemental baritone. “How are you things going on your end? I know you ran into some unexpected delays on Friday, were you able to get past those?”
Lillian shifted uneasily. She was trying to build familiarity with a new codebase, and found the whole thing rather daunting. So she’d poked at it a little bit, but then ended up spending a couple of hours playing video game during and after lunch. She’d puttered at it a bit more after that, but often found herself lurking on discussion boards instead. She’d maybe worked on it for two or three hours? Couldn’t very well tell the boss that!
“W-well, not really. I’m having–”
The door swung open and Gertrude stepped in, her face stiff. “I have tried to be patient with you Lillian, but–by the Oak, look at this room!”
Lillian yelped. “Gertrude, I’m in a meeting! Can’t we talk later?”
“Later, later always later with you.” Gertrude’s eyes roamed the room, taking in the towels tossed carelessly on the floor, the piles of clothing both clean and dirty, the scattered soda cans, food wrappers and crumbs. “This is how you treat your room? Respect my home?”
“I-I was gonna clean it up later,” squeaked Lillian. “B-but–”
“Later, later always later with you!” Gertrude rolled up the sleeve of her right arm. A most peculiar, and ominous gesture. “We are going to deal with this now.”
Gertrude pulled Lillian out of the chair, and tucked the short girl under her beefy arm.
Lillian squirmed, her big bottom wiggling, her cheeks jiggling beneath her tight sweatpants as she clenched anxiously. Gertrude’s thick arm circled her waist, holding her firm against the woman’s broad hip, the large woman’s long skirts swishing around her. Gertrude was so much taller than Lillian, that the woman had lifted Lillian slightly off the ground, leaving only the girl’s bare toes scrabbling against the floor.
Lillian found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror, her own mouth gaping like a fish and her eyes wide. Gertrude’s powerful, looming, figure towered above Lillian’s short, bent form. Gertrude raised her right hand above her head, the back of her large hand almost seeming to flash in the morning light, the muscles of her exposed forearm flexing. “G-gertrude, what are you doing? G-gertrude w-wait, wait!”
Everything seemed to pause, even Lillian’s panicked breathing. Gertrude’s hand arced down, and splatted Lillian’s massive right cheek. The soft flesh flattened beneath Gertrude’s palm, the fitted sweatpants exposing the ripples spreading across Lillian’s bottom. A sharp crack filled the room. Lillian sucked in a breath. Her body jerked forward beneath the stroke. For an instant, it was just an impact. Then the pain came, and Lillian howled. The tension snapped. Gertrude’s arm swung up and down, alternating cheeks with each stroke. Lillian’s body rocked beneath the heavy strokes. She howled and kicked. Her hands flailed. Tears of pain flowed down her face. Her thick bottom roiled and wobbled beneath Gertrude’s powerful smacks. Hot waves of pain washed across her bobbling bottom, each stroke sending a shock of stinging agony through her sensitive buttocks.
“Excuse me!” shouted Lillian’s boss over the computer.
Gertrude stopped. Lillian gasped. Oh God, her colleagues were hearing this happening! Surely, her boss would–
“I hate to interrupt Miss…”
“Gertrude. You can just call me Gertrude,” said Gertrude.
“Gertrude, right. Well, I hate to interrupt,” said her boss. “But I’m having a hard time hearing anybody else over Lillian’s spanking, so if you could just go ahead and mute yourself.”
Lillian felt dizzy for a moment. Reality itself seemed to tilt and warp. Her boss should have reacted somehow. Discomfort, embarassment, fury, hell even lechery. Not just asking Gertrude to mute like he would somebody who had a barking dog or wailing baby in the background.
“Oh, of course,” said Gertrude. “Sorry about that. Wasn’t thinking.”
“Actually, just go ahead and log off. I’m sure we’ll be done before you are. I’ll touch base with Lillian later,” said her boss, acting for all the world like Lillian was having internet trouble, not getting spanked like a child by her landlady!
The dizziness returned. This was not a thing that happened. Landlords threatened eviction, not spankings!
“Oh, of course. Thanks for being so understanding,” said Gertrude cheerfully. Getrude hunched over Lillian’s computer, and Lillian heard the chime of her logging off the meeting.
Silence descended over the room.
“Now,” said Gertrude with steel in her voice. Lillian shivered and gasped. She danced on her toes, her stinging bottom rocking back and forth. Gertrude dragged Lillian a few steps sideways, and sat down on the bed, draping the uneasily squirming girl over her large, powerful thighs. Lillian whimpered and wiggled, her fat, stinging bottom wiggling and jiggling. Lillian’s whimpers turned into squeals when Gertrude tugged the girl’s sweatpants down to her thighs, bringing her thick cheeks bouncing into view, her tiny white thong doing nothing to hide those soft, pink globes. Gertrude made a delighted sound. “My goodness, Lilly these panties are so much better than those awful, shapeless sacks you used to wear, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Lillian stopped moving for a second, her befuddled, pain-fogged mind struggling to process Gertrude’s words. This whole situation was incredibly surreal, like she’d stumbled into some new world where everything was completely different in ways she didn’t know could be different. “But, but they’re so slutty!”
Gertrude brought her hand down hard on Lillian’s right cheek. Lillian’s soft, doughy flesh caved beneath Gertrude’s hard, flat palm. Lillian howled and bucked. Oh God, those sweatpants might have been thin, but getting whacked on your bare skin was something else! Gertrude followed up with a matching stroke to Lillian’s left cheek, sending the sensitive cheek into a rippling fit, drawing another howl and kick from the girl.
Twice more Getrdude did the same, one hard smack to each cheek. Lillian’s rapidly reddening cheeks bounced madly beneath the blows. Lillian’s legs kicked, and her hands flailed for purchase. Eventually, they closed over her pillow. She yanked it to her chest and buried her face in it, wailing in pain.
“I always hated that word,” said Gertrude, her voice cutting through the sharp cracks of big hand on bigger bottom. “Such a cruel, odious word. Women should be allowed to revel in their sexuality, to look good and feel desirous without being sneered at. You are no longer allowed to use that word. You may use ‘sexy’ or even ‘skimpy’ instead. Anytime I hear you use that word, I will put you over my knee and spank your bare bottom right then and there. Understand?”
“Ouch, yes, please stop!”
“Girl, we’re just getting started.” Gertrude made Lillian’s right cheek wobble with a sharp smack. “Now let’s try it. Say ‘But they’re so sexy!’”
This was ridiculous. She looked like a slut, and saying a different word wasn’t going to change anything.
And yet…
Lillian found herself thinking back to that moment when she saw her bottom in the mirror, the way the thong outlined and emphasized the rounded curves of her bottom. That little thrill she felt when she saw the way her pale bottom jutted out, round and perhaps even sexy…
“B-but they’re so sexy,” mumbled Lillian.
“There do you hear the difference?” asked Gertrude.
Lillian mumbled something, nodded and squirmed. A part of her even meant it.
“Right, now let’s see. You’ve been spanked for the late rent. We’ve talked about proper language. Time to talk about the state of your room.” And with that, Gertrude proceeded to give Lillian a spanking that made every smack Gertrude had given her so far look like playful little love taps.
Lillian wailed into her pillow. Her legs kicked frantically, the motion pushing her sweatpants lower and lower until finally she kicked them off completely. Now fully unrestrained, her bare legs hammered the bed with such vigor, and her hips rocked and wiggled with such intensity, that Gertrude had to shift Lillian’s hips onto her left knee, and hook her right leg over Lillian’s thighs to keep the girl from throwing herself on the ground.
Gertrude also took her left hand off the small of Lillian’s back, and circled Lillian’s broad hips, pulling the wailing girl tight against her torso. As her palm descended once more onto Lillian’s now pinned buttocks, Lillian could do nothing but shriek into her pillow and flutter kick with all her might.
Gertrude’s palm struck Lillian’s exposed cheeks with speed, accuracy, and power. For a while, she alternated cheeks with each slap, making both buttocks jiggle like jello. Then she focused on one cheek at a time, landing a dozen hard smacks to every inch of Lillian’s right cheek, before doing the same to her left. She did that three or four more times, and then began alternating once more.
All Lillian knew was pain, humiliation, and guilt. The pain of Gertrude’s beefy hand striking her vulnerable bottom with abandon, the humiliation of being spanked like a child, of feeling like a child draped over Gertrude’s large lap, of Gertrude seeing every jiggle, wiggle and dimple on her bare ass. The guilt of not being a better tenant, of not keeping her room clean, or keeping up on rent, or even really talking to Gertrude beyond the bare minimum.
Eventually, she felt powerful arms pull her up into a sitting position straddling Gertrude’s lap. The large woman pulled Lillian’s sobbing form against her large chest, and rocked her back and forth, shushing and hushing.
Slowly, Lillian’s sobs faded, and the blaze in her rear subsided to a flaming burn. Gertrude pulled Lillian away and looked the girl in the eye. “I expect you to show my home much greater respect than you have to date. Understand?”
Lillian nodded.
“Good. You’re going to clean up right now. And I’m going to perform daily inspections, each day at 7 in the morning. Anytime you fail to meet my very high standards for cleanliness, you will go over my knee. Eventually, when I’m confident you can keep your space clean, we will go to weekly, and then monthly inspections. Understand?”
Lillian winced. Oh God, would she ever sit again? But she found herself nodding all the same.
“Good. Now, start cleaning.” Gertrude set the girl down. “You’ve got a lot to do.”
Lillian stumbled forward. She snatched up her trash can, and eeped as the cans and wrappers stacked precariously on top went clattering across the floor.
Gertrude gave Lillian’s right cheek a hard smack, drawing a yelp from the girl. "Empty the trash can before you pick it up. There are fresh garbage bags under the sink, and the main trash can is in the garage.
Lillian hastily set the trash can down. She started to bend over to pull out the trash bag, but hesitated, suddenly conscious of the way her giant bottom, thoroughly exposedby the teeny tiny thong would thrust up into the air.
Gertrude’s hand arced and struck Lillian’s left cheek. “Hurry girl. You have a lot to do, not the least of which is your job.”
Lillian jumped and squealed. She hastily bent over and pulled out the bag. She knotted it closed with shaking hands, and stumbled out of the room and downstairs. She hesitated at the door into the garage. What if the garage door was open? She’d be showing her bare, soundly spanked bottom to the whole neighborhood.
Lillian felt Gertrude’s powerful arm encircle her shoulders, and the woman’s hand clapped against Lillian’s stinging bottom several times in rapid succession, making the girl wail and dance.
“Stop dawdling child,” said Gertrude in a firm, controlled voice. “Or you’ll go back over my knee.”
Lillian bolted into the garage, and very nearly crashed into the big blue garbage bin, sitting just outside the door. The garage door was closed, and she didn’t even have to leave the carpeted top of the steps. She tossed the bag into the bin, and hurried back inside. She made a beeline the stairs.
“Lillian,” said Gertrude in a voice that made the girl seize up in terror. “Don’t you think you should grab some garbage bags?”
Lillian squeaked and scurried to the sink, where Gertrude stood. She hastily pulled some garbage bags out, and rushed back up the stairs.
What followed was a good hour of frantic trash picking, laundry folding, stuff organizing, vacuuming and dusting. Gertrude was there the entire time, her hand cracking against Lillian’s thong-framed bottom whenever the girl tried to cut corners, missed a piece of trash or otherwise failed to meet the woman’s exacting standards. Which was often. By the end, Lillian’s bottom blazed almost as fiercely as when Gertrude had her facedown over her knee, and fresh tears stained her face.
Eventually, mercifully, Gertrude made a satisfied sound. “Now, go take a shower and relax a bit. Then you can connect with your boss.”
Lillian groaned, and very carefully made sure not to think about her boss and what he had heard. Instead, she dove into the bathroom and lost herself in the longest, hottest shower she’d ever taken. As the cascading water soothed her (though she had to make sure to face the shower, her bottom was far too tender to take the showerhead straight on), she found herself struggling to figure out what was going on.
Could the spell last night be doing something? How else to explain her weird sense of distorted reality, the fact that her landlady just up and decided to spank her and how blase her boss was about it? But she hadn’t wished for anything like this! She couldn’t really remember what she wished for now, something about being better, but she certainly hadn’t said “I wish to be spanked like a toddler by my landlady.” And what about her clothing? What on Earth happened to her underwear? And her sweatpants?
As she thought about the inexpicable changes in her wardrobe, she flushed and thought back once more to the site of her big bottom in a tiny thong in the mirror, and the little thrill she felt. She supposed her butt did look better in such slu–erm, sexy panties. But that wasn’t what she’d had in mind! Well, not just that. Maybe a little bit of that. But not enough to justify changing her entire wardrobe over night!
Eventually, she dragged herself out, dried off, and put back on her thong and shirt. She eyed her sweatpants for a moment (which Gertrude had kindly collected and slipped into the bathroom while Lillian was in the shower), but decided not to put them on. Soft as they were, there was no way her bottom could handle anything on it at the moment.
She stopped in the doorway to her room, blinking at the clean, open space. A warm breeze wafted in through the open window. She felt her shoulders relax, tension she didn’t realize she had just oozing from her body. Her room smelled clean and fresh, and it looked much bigger than she’d remembered.
A small smile graced her face. She approached her desk, humming. The hums faded when she reached her office chair. She eyed it warily. She knelt on the chair, careful not to let it roll out from under her, bent over her desk and got to work.
After about an hour, she heard Gertrude moving around outside her room, and absently glanced over her shoulder. She saw her reflection in the mirror on her door and stared. There she was, demurely peeking around her own wide hips, her curvy ass thrust out behind her, round cheeks framed and fully exposed by the white thong. Though it still felt like she’d sat on hot coals, the red had mostly faded from her bum, leaving behind a healthy pink blush.
Lillian blushed, and chewed on her lower lip. She wiggled her hips back and forth, watching her bottom sway with the motion. Next she bounced her bottom up and down, giggling as she watched her fat cheeks jiggle.
The door swung open, and Gertrude stood in the doorway, holding Lillian’s sweatpants. She stepped in and swung the door closed behind her. “Good, you’re already bent over.”
She was on Lillian before Lillian could do much more than eep in surprise and embarassment. Gertrude held the chair steady with the same hand holding Lillian’s sweatpants, and peppered Lillian’s outthrust bottom with her other.
Lillian squealed and wiggled. She looked over her shoulder, and once again caught her reflection in the mirror. Except instead of giggling as she watched her bottom jiggle from her own bouncing, she was wailing as she watched her bottom jiggle from Gertrude’s hard smacks.
“Care to explain to me why you left your pants on the floor of the bathroom?” asked Gertrude over the sharp cracks of hard hand on soft bottom. “Did we not just spend an hour cleaning your room, right after spending twenty minutes thrashing your naughty butt because you keep leaving messes around?”
“I don’t know,” mumbled Lillian, squirming on her chair, watching her big red bottom wiggle in the mirror. “It was just habit!”
“Well, it’s a bad habit, and you’d best start breaking it,” said Gertrude. She gave Lillian’s left cheek a hard smack. “Or I’ll do it for you. Understand?”
Lillian whimpered and nodded.
“Good.” Gertrude gave Lillian a little hug and peck on the forehead. “Now, lunch is ready.”
Gertrude handed the girl her sweatpants. “And do something with these. Put them on, or in your drawer, or in your hamper, I don’t particularly care. Just don’t leave them on the floor.”
“Yes ma’am,” mumbled Lillian, taking the pants.
“Come on down whenever you’re ready.” Gertrude left.
Lillian eyed her sweatpants. On the one hand, she didn’t like the idea of going downstairs in nothing but a shirt and thong. On the other, it’s not like Gertrude was going to be seeing anything she hadn’t already, and her bottom really hurt.
Lillian whimpered and turned to study her bottom in the mirror. She rubbed a swollen, bright red cheek, wincing as her fingers touched the flaming skin.
She took a few deep breaths, wrote a check for her rent, and headed down to eat, sans pants. Gertrude was kind enough to let her stand at the table, though Lillian had to bend over a little to reach her food. She squirmed uneasily as she thought of the way her bottom was thrust out behind her, and how easily it would be for Gertrude to pin her torso to the table and spank her again. But Gertrude did no such thing, nor showed any such inclination, and they ate in silence. A part of Lillian yearned to start a conversation about something, anything, but as always some sort of barrier held her back. She hastily finished her meal and hurried back upstairs to finish her job.
She finished the rest of the day in the same position Gertrude found her just before lunch: kneeling on her chair, bent at the desk with her butt in the air. While she didn’t like the sense of vulnerability whenever she thought of that towering tree of a woman somewhere else in the house, she liked the idea of sitting even less. Maybe she should splurge on one of those fancy desks you can raise and lower.
She shivered. Yes, a fancy desk was a good idea. She had a terrible feeling this wouldn’t be the last day she’d rather not sit at her computer.
Her eyes swept over the clean, open, light space, and lingered on those two round globes framed by a white thong in the mirror. She bounced her butt up and down, blushing and giggling as she watched her soft flesh wobble.
Maybe…maybe that ritual was working. Maybe things were better. Worse in some ways, but better in others. And maybe those better others were…better.