In bed that night, I moved around until I got comfortable. Jeff and I had had a short session with a short, whippy cane, which had been fun. I was paying for it now, though. I thought of Rayanne's reaction to Jeff's slipper. I wondered what had happened to mum's old size fourteen. As I drifted off to sleep, remembering those happy, carefree days, I resolved to pay mum a visit; I hadn't seen her for a while, and our relationship was at a pretty low ebb. She always seemed annoyed with something when I visited, and invariably found something to criticise. It usually ended in a stand up fight and me storming out. At the heart of it, I suspected, was the fact that at thirty-two I still wasn't married. Life, for my mother, was about duty. I wasn't doing mine.
Next day I awoke with a familiar, dull ache that followed a day with Rayanne. It was one of these lazy Sundays, when nothing much happens. I donned the lycra. 'Off to visit my mum,' I told Jeff. 'Want to come?'
'Uh, no, no thanks. I've got the, emm, grass to cut.'
I smiled. Jeff was scared of my mum. She could be quite forceful in her opinions, and considered Jeff a bit' lightweight'. 'Make sure it's done when I get back,' I said, as I mounted my bike. 'Or there'll be trouble.' Jeff waved a languid hand, not really listening. I set off on the ten mile journey. The feeling of the hard saddle through the thin lycra made it a fun trip.
The old house I grew up in hadn't changed much. Nor had my mother. She'd been a gym teacher in a rough school (not mine, thankfully) who'd kept order with the aid of a tattered plimsoll that struck fear into the toughest members of the class, Always a strong woman, she had kept fit and active since she retired by cutting logs for the fire, running, long walks with her friends and maintaining her big garden. She was 63 but could easily pass for ten years younger. She still retained that air of authority that teachers have; I was a good four inches taller than her, but that made no difference, she was the one in charge.
She asked the usual question, about Jeff. 'He's perfectly nice, Laura, but you need someone to stand up to you, challenge you.' Today she had a new gripe: she didn't approve of my cycling getup. No point telling her that lycra was what was worn now, it was 'unladylike' and that was the end of it. It wasn't unexpected; I knew her views and had deliberately pulled on my skimpiest cycling gear to annoy her.
She was slightly mollified by the home made cupcakes I produced from my backpack; home baking was something a woman should do, after all.
After lunch I helped wash up, and when her back was turned opened the cupboard door. The old leather slipper was there. It looked massive. The mere sight of it hanging from that same old nail gave me a funny feeling inside. I had hated, feared, then endured, and finally relished the feel of it on my teenage backside.
When I closed the door she was standing looking at me. 'Yes, it's still there. Do you remember how often I had to use it on you? You were wild when you were a teenager. In the end, I think you got used to it. Sometimes I even think you got to like it a little.'
I coloured. Took a breath. 'More than a little, mum.'
'Hmm. I suspected as much. Get it for me, would you?' Said so easily, the old order that preceded a very sore backside. I lifted it down, feeling a slight tingle as I did so, handed it to her. It felt heavy, solid. Seeing her holding it, looking at me with the faint disapproval which had become the norm over my last few visits, sent me right back to my sixteen year old self, just about to get what was coming to me. It took all of my resolve not to bend over the kitchen table there and then.
Then her gaze softened. 'Every so often, you know, when I see it there, I wonder if I was too hard on you and your brother. It's a pretty big slipper, after all. It packs quite a sting.'
I was suddenly overcome by a feeling of such love for the woman standing in front of me. To have these doubts, after all these years. I took her in my arms.'You didn't have any choice, mum. Like you said, I was wild. You kept me on the straight and narrow. It's because of you, and that slipper, that I'm the person I am today.' In more ways than one, I thought.
My face snuggled into her shoulder, and the years fell away. I was brought back to the present by a hard whack of the slipper across my bottom.
I stepped back and rubbed at the sting through the lycra.'What the fuck, mum?'
She blanched, and her jaw set in that way it did when she was really annoyed. 'I was going to have a word with you about a couple of things, Laura, including how you think turning up in your underwear to see me is appropriate, but now I'm annoyed. Really annoyed. You haven't changed. You still know how to wind me up. Have you forgotten how I feel about language like that? About the swearing rule in this house?'
I had forgotten, but I remembered it then. Rigidly enforced by a sliding scale of whacks from the slipper she was now flexing in her hands.
But she wasn't the only one who was angry. I looked her straight in the eyes. 'I'm not a teenager any more, mum. I'm over 30. I swear. I drink. I fuck,' spat out, for maximum effect, 'who I like. And I dress how I like.' Delivered with the same forthrightness and vehemence that I used when I was a teenager facing a leathering.
Her voice was low and even; controlled. Always a bad sign. 'You're still my daughter, Victoria, no matter how old you are.' Victoria was my first name, which I had hated when I was a teenager, so had decided to call myself Laura, my middle name. My mother still used it if she was angry. It had always been a sign that I was in for an extra hard punishment.
She went on. 'And you're in my house. You know my rules. And what's more, I will not tolerate being spoken to that way. I didn't when you lived here, and I don't see why I should now.' She looked me in the eye. 'Bend over the table.'
My mouth dropped open. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing. But I felt a familiar tingle of anticipation inside. 'But you can't. I'm not your little girl any more. You can't slipper me. You just can't.'
'I think you'll find that I can, my girl!' I was just about to find out how angry she was. She grabbed my shoulder, pushed me across the room to the table. An irresistible force bent me forwards, until I was face down on the old scrubbed wood. I felt her hand on the small of my back.
'In case you've forgotten, that particular word, the F word, means six of the best.' I tried to stand. Her arm was an iron rod. 'But,' she went on, 'you repeated it, and you've used a tone to me, in my own home, that I do not appreciate. And not for the first time. So that's two sixes for the repeated F word, and two for the way you spoke to me. Fourteen in all. One for each year since I last slippered your bottom. Nice coincidence, isn't it?'
I could hardly believe my ears. But I didn't respond. I remembered how hard a slippering could be when my mother was properly angry. My insides were in turmoil and I was tingling with a mixture of fear and anticipation.
I felt the slipper rest on my backside for a moment, then lift away. With a crack!that echoed round the room the smooth leather whipped across both cheeks, followed almost immediately by a second crack! just as hard. I howled and leapt to my feet, hands clasped to my smarting backside.
'Shit! That's too hard!'
'Tut tut, my girl. Have you forgotten all the rules? Now I have to start again. And that little outburst has earned you an extra one. Down you go.'
In a trance, I lowered myself again. Such was the authority in her voice there was no hand on my back pressing me down this time. Instead I reverted completely, and gripped the far edge of the table.
I heard a chuckle. 'Good girl. It all comes back, doesn't it? I think I'm going to enjoy this. Makes a change from doing the weeding.' She laid the slipper across my backside. 'Your rear end has got bigger over the last fourteen years. Makes a nice target.'
I felt the slipper move away. My knuckles were white as they gripped the table edge. Not having to hold me down meant mum could take her old stance. And her old, full swing. My mother's preferred way of delivering a slippering had been hard, fast and very painful.
The leather connected with a crack! twice as loud than the first two. An explosion of pain washed over me. I gritted my teeth. Crack! Crack! Crack! My backside was being flayed as the heavy, smooth leather seared a path of fire across both cheeks. I jerked and writhed. Arched my back, threw my head up. I tried not to make a sound, but after the fourth stroke blazed across my punished backside I howled like a banshee. Seven blistering strokes into the fourteen, she stopped. I lay across the table, breath coming out in shuddering bursts.