Free Butter Wouldn't Melt by Penny Birch

towards the stairs before continuing in a quieter voice. ‘I was sorry not to see you on Saturday night. Another time, I trust?’
    I hesitated, wanting to explain the situation and how I felt about men, still not entirely certain that he was talking about Morris Rathwell’s spanking party and very eager indeed not to give myself away if he wasn’t. A question seemed the best answer.
    â€˜Did it go well?’
    Again he glanced towards the stairs, then shut the door before he answered.
    â€˜Yes, although your presence would have been a great asset, both for your own sweet sake and because he was down to three girls. However, when at the office, we make a rule of only referring to our mutual penchant in oblique terms; while however delightful the prospect might be, it is of course out of the question to actually indulge ourselves. Discretion must be our watchword.’
    He had to be talking about spanking, in which case Maggie would seem to have broken the rules with a vengeance. I wondered if that meant she would get her own bottom smacked if I told on her, a thought I couldn’t help but relish. That also implied that neither he nor Mr Todmorden was likely to be trying to get me across the knee at the office, which came as a relief.
    â€˜Although,’ he went on, ‘we have occasionally given in to temptation with Helen, but only when it was quite safe.’
    I nodded, picturing the pretty secretary punished by the three of them as he continued.
    â€˜I trust you would be amenable to something similar?’
    Now was my chance to back out politely, but as I struggled for the right words I realised that I could hardly claim to be faithful to AJ when he might find out I’d been spanked by Maggie. A claim of pure lesbianism seemed a better bet, but even more embarrassing, and I was quickly going pink. He smiled.
    â€˜You are blushing, how lovely. Well then, I shall not press the issue.’
    He would have said more, and I still wanted to explain myself, but his phone went and he returned downstairs. I went back to work, my fingers now trembling slightly at what was expected of me, and the fact that I wasn’t entirely against accepting my fate. Possibly I could let Maggie deal with me in front of them, a thought at once hideously embarrassing and deeply compelling, although it paled in comparison with the prospect of actually being put across a man’s knee.
    An hour later Steve came up to invite me out to lunch but I refused flat out, confident that it would be in character. I was approaching the end of the filing as well, and keen to get it done before the end of the day, so I pushed on, applying the final stamp to the final file just before four o’clock. It only remained to take them downstairs, so I worked out how many I could carry at a time and divided them into twelve neat piles.
    As I took the first down, I was telling myself it was ridiculous to feel apprehensive at having to go into the basement, and that Mr Prufrock would be a perfectly ordinary old man. I still hesitated at the top of the staircase, which seemed unnecessarily gloomy,while the door at the bottom was firmly shut. Again I told myself not to be silly and went down, putting one foot firmly in front of the other and balancing the files against the door to free my hand as I knocked.
    There was a creak from within, an odd shuffling noise and a rustle which I couldn’t help but interpret as Mr Prufrock hastily doing up his fly. At last the door opened, but I found myself looking over the top of my bundle at nothing more alarming than some old shelves, each stacked with files. Only as a veined and liver-spotted hand pushed the door wider still did I realise that I was looking clean over the top of Mr Prufrock’s head.
    â€˜You must be the new girl,’ he said as I quickly turned sideways so that I could see him.
    Mr Prufrock didn’t look quite as grotesque as I’d been imagining him, but