Bertie tugged for the third time at his necktie, then finally unwound it and started over. The motions of a Windsor knot still came clumsily to him, but it wouldn’t do for the new Assistant Manager to look sloppy. No matter how many attempts it took, he was going to look the part. It would just take some getting used to.

“Bertie! Can I have one of these?”

The refrigerator door blocked most of her from view, but a shock of her close-cropped indigo hair was visible from the side, as well as the plate of Rice Krispies squares she was holding.

“They’re for my mom’s book club. Leave them alone.”

Rachel pouted. “Not even one? I’m hungry.”

He couldn’t believe they’d lasted even this long – living out of his mother’s basement had helped Bertie afford a car and pay off the loans from his useless Literature degree, but it hadn’t much endeared him to the opposite sex. Rachel had not only accepted that, but she’d even stayed over on a handful of mostly chaste occasions (Only mostly chaste – there had been some over-the-clothes stuff).

But they were nearing the point of having ‘the talk’, and Bertie still wasn’t sure he was ready for it.

Rachel closed the door with a thud. For a grown woman – at twenty-nine, she was four years older than he was – she could be downright childish when she was frustrated. Bertie had decided it was a fair trade-off for her loveable spontaneity.

She also, he noted, had yet to finish dressing. It had been a warm summer, but an unbuttoned dress shirt and what could charitably be called bicycle shorts still fell short of appropriate workplace attire. And given that his recent promotion, it fell to Bertie to deliver the bad news.

“See if you can find your pants, Rachel. We’ll get something to eat at work.”

“Are you sure you want me to cover this back up?” She wiggled her hips, perhaps a bit more than she needed to get her point across, and turned to head back downstairs.

“I mean it,” he said, blushing. “Hands off the squares!”

Rachel playfully called back, “What are you going to do, spank me?”

Bertie’s fingers trembled, and the knot came apart in his hands. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Rachel had disappeared without waiting for his reaction.

‘The talk’ couldn’t wait any longer. But did she already know?

***

Rachel’s hindbrain screamed at her, What are you doing?

I’m eating a marshmallow cereal bar, she told herself. And it’s tasty.

But he might actually spank you!

Maybe? Good, thought Rachel. Compared to some of the stuff her ex had been in to, spanking was pretty tame. But as kind as Bertie was, as affectionate as he was and as much as he brought a much-needed stability to her life… Bertie needed a push of his own.

She didn’t mind so much that he lived with his mom, or that he was so clearly a virgin. But when she made the first move in asking him out, she’d hoped that he would take the next. Bertie’s reluctance didn’t stem from a religious upbringing or past trauma, as far as she could tell. In fact, her latest insight suggested that the problem was worse than she’d originally thought.

He’d fallen asleep the night before after a bit of heavy petting, clutching her in his arms, his hard-on still prodding her in the thigh. She’d seen it in his little smile; not only was he content to be so close to the woman he wanted so much without fucking her, but that he was proud of his own restraint in doing so.

Restraint, when she hadn’t been touched down there by anything but her own fingers in over a year. What a joke.

She found her slacks slung over the bed where she’d left them. They were starting to wear thin at the thighs - now that Bertie was Assistant Manager maybe he’d spring for another pair.  She hated the slim-fitting uniform trousers, too long and too tight for her stocky little legs, never mind her fat ass.

For somebody so keen on abstinence, Bertie couldn’t seem to keep his hands away from that part of her body. It had started as a hand on her hip, two months ago when they’d started dating, and he’d slowly worked down from there, a little pinch, a reassuring squeeze, the occasional obvious grope.

He could have more, if he really wanted, but it was going to cost him just a bit of that self-discipline. He might even instill some in her.

She giggled at the thought.

“Rachel, come on! We’re going to be late!”

She brushed the crumbs off her shirt before she went back upstairs. There was no sense in being too obvious.

***

He was supposed to be familiarizing himself with the office software, creating a mock schedule for the week after next. But Bertie couldn’t concentrate, and his eyes kept drifting over to the feed from the security cameras.

Rachel hadn’t said a word to him since they’d started their respective shifts. He’d seen her pass by on the screen between the kitchen and the dining room, picking up and dropping off plates and wiping down tables. At one point, it looked like she’d winked at the camera, but that could have well been his mind playing tricks on him.

“What are you going to do, spank me?” No matter how much he second-guessed himself, those words were from her lips and not his imagination.

She could have been joking with him, of course, or just teasing.

Or…

His phone lit up with a message from Rachel. I’m coming over tonight, right?

He’d almost forgotten. His mom was going to her book club, after all, they would have the house to themselves. He responded with a thumbs-up emoji.

I’m feeling naughty tonight, Rachel continued, and if your mom’s not home, then we don’t have to be…

…Quiet.

The office was poorly ventilated, Bertie told himself. There was no other reason that he should be sweating.

He hadn’t taken his friend Sophie seriously when she warned that an older girlfriend would expect him to put out.  His experience in the bedroom arts was limited – more than Rachel credited him for, but not much more. She probably believed that sex intimidated him, and she was half-right in that assumption.

Because it wasn’t sex that figured in his fantasies. What Bertie desired more than anything was to pull Rachel over his knee and make that juicy round butt of hers dance and turn pink.

And if they were going to be… intimate… then Rachel deserved to know. Right?

Eventually, Bertie got around to finishing the schedule, in between his other administrative tasks. By that time, Rachel had already clocked out. He estimated he had about an hour and a half, maybe two, before she’d make her way back to the house, before he had to make his decision.

Instead, he got home to find the door unlocked. He opened it to hear high-pitched Japanese voices echoing from the basement, and found Rachel sitting cross-legged on the bed watching anime on his laptop.

She waved. “Hey, Bertie. Your mom let me in on her way out the door. I hope you don’t mind that I showered and changed here.”

It was the change that had Bertie’s full attention. She’d traded in the bicycle shorts for hip-hugging panties that showed off a delicious amount of leg, and her purple camisole was so thin as to be see-through. There was no way that she’d been wearing that when Alicia had answered the door.

Bertie loosened his tie and forced his gaze upward.

“Interesting that you bring up my mother,” he started, remembering what he’d rehearsed. “I got a text while I was still at work. Apparently, she only had fourteen squares to bring to her book club tonight, but she baked sixteen. Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”

He was lying, of course – the book club had all of six members. As long as there were enough sweets to pass around, Alicia wouldn’t have even bothered to count them. But Bertie had.

Rachel ran her teeth over her lip. “I might have had one or two,” she confessed.

He sat down on the bed beside her, his back against the headboard.

“Just might?” Her hair still smelled faintly of her floral shampoo.

“I couldn’t help myself. Does that make me a bad girl?”

She put down the laptop and leaned forward. Maybe it was from the air conditioning, but he could see a pair of violet nipples pointing toward him from beneath her top.

Bertie’s thoughts went blank, his script abruptly forgotten. He couldn’t have directed a better invitation from Rachel if he tried, and not for the first time he started to consider that maybe he was out of his depth with this woman.

“A b-b-b-“ he stammered.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Come on, Bertie. I don’t need a lecture.”

Something clicked.

“I know what you need,” Bertie heard himself say, “and I should thank you for suggesting it in the first place.”

Her position already had her tilted toward him, and it took only a small push to get her into his lap. She gasped as his arm encircled her waist, locking her in place.

He could feel her writhing underneath him, but it didn’t escape his notice that she was struggling with her hips only, the movement pressing against his groin and causing her cute little panties to ride up between her cheeks.

He had to reach out with his free hand and hold something solid just to ensure he wasn’t dreaming.

“Bertie! Are you just going to fondle me—“

***

Men! Some of them couldn’t take a hint without a full-page guide!

“—Or is there going to be any- YOW!”

She wasn’t hurt so much as surprised. Maybe Bertie didn’t need as much guidance as she’d thought. The smack of hand on haunches echoed in the small room.

“Too much?” asked Bertie nervously.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rachel replied in the snottiest voice she could summon. “I barely felt a thing.”

The reaction was immediate and predictable, and she winced with the impact. She was already over his knee, and she didn’t need to provoke him any further.

His hand skipped over her ass from one cheek to the other, each swat making her wiggle and jiggle, and despite his uneasy tone of voice, his body language told her how excited he was feeling – especially the bit that was poking her in the side.

“You think you’ve learned your lesson?” asked Bertie.

A particularly loud swat interrupted her answer. She bit her tongue and tried again.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think I’ve wanted to do this for a while now. And I suppose I should be grateful that you’re such a brat sometimes.”

He rested his hand over her butt, his fingertips softly massaging the hot surface of her skin. Rachel purred her approval, parting her thighs in a gesture that Bertie couldn’t miss at his most oblivious.

And then to her surprise, he asked, “Do you want to keep going?”

At that moment Rachel realized that to Bertie, this setup wasn’t just a transparent excuse to get his hands all over her ass. Her boy had a fetish.

That changed things. “I thought you were a gentleman, Bertie.”

“What?”

“And any gentleman knows a proper spanking is given on the bare.”

She felt a twitch when she’d said the word ‘spanking’. The reaction was unexpected, and she wished she’d been facing him when she’d said it. Was she being too aggressive?

And then there was a tug on her underwear. Hesitant at first, as his fingers found purchase under her waistband. Once his grip was sure he wasted no time pulling away her last flimsy layer of protection, until they rested in a tangle around her feet.

Rachel felt Bertie tense as he raised his arm once more. The tension dipped, and despite herself Rachel clenched before his hand struck down. The brief pause she’d been given hadn’t been enough for her to cool down. And Bertie was only too eager to pick up where he’d left off.

The familiar sensation took hold, the sting settling deep in her skin and sinking beneath it. Her body fought for control, flooding her with adrenaline, but she couldn’t break Bertie’s hold on her – nor did she want to. She wanted that feeling of helplessness. She’d missed it for so long.

In the time that she had spent with Hugo, Rachel had come to expect a spanking at least once or twice a week – either for breaking one of her ex’s many house rules, or just for his enjoyment. It had been an uncomfortable learning curve, but by the end she’d developed a considerable tolerance.

However, she had left Hugo more than four years before. As for her tolerance…

“Ow! Ow!” she yelled, tapping out on the mattress. “It was just a couple of squares, Bertie! That’s enough, okay!”

To his credit, he let go immediately. Rachel rolled off his legs onto her side, rubbing vigorously at her sizzling seat.

She could hear Bertie beside her, “Are you alright? I’m so sorry—“

“It’s fine,” she hissed through her teeth. “I shouldn’t have teased you. Ooh!”

“How can I help?”

You’ve done enough, she was tempted to say, expecting the disappointment to be plain on his face. Instead, all she saw was genuine concern.

“Kiss it better?” she offered sarcastically.

To her shock, he did. Taking hold of her waist, he gave her ass a quick peck, and when she didn’t protest, he kept going, his lips cool and wet on her poor hot butt. It wasn’t exactly a turn-on, but it felt pretty good—

“Oh!”

***

Bertie brought his head back up. “You didn’t like that?”

“A little surprised, that’s all… most guys don’t do that. At least, not their first time.”

“Should I stop, then?”

Rachel shook her head emphatically.

It had been an impulse. She seemed to be appreciating his kisses, so why not go a little… deeper? For the second time, he slid his tongue in a line down her cleft, lightly brushing her sphincter again. She shuddered in what Bertie could only hope was pleasure, and he kept going.

Tiny coarse hair prickled at his lips and chin, but Bertie’s thirst for exploration pushed him onward. Her pink folds parted at his touch, and then he could taste her, her scent and texture wonderfully new.

Sweat poured down his face, from her body heat or his own arousal he couldn’t tell. Her body shook as he licked the tiny nub he discovered inside her, urging him on, and he dug his fingers into her cheeks like claws and drew her into him. He could barely breathe with her tailbone pressed against his nose, but what was breathing compared to the way she moaned with his tongue deep in her—

Rachel let out a gasp and thrust backward, and for Bertie everything went dark.

***

He blinked, and Rachel sighed in relief.

“What happened?” he mumbled.

“Well, the good news is that you made me come. The bad news is that I think I choked you out with my butt and you fainted. Sorry.”

Looking down, she spotted a dab of moisture leaking through his slacks. Even with his full effort devoted to pleasing her, he’d been that close to getting off himself.

He muttered something she didn’t hear.

“Hm?”

“I said you ass-phyxiated me. But what a way to go.”

Rachel laughed. And to think that an hour ago, she was ready to give him an ultimatum. Even for stability, she wouldn’t settle for a dull relationship. Bertie might have his inhibitions – maybe a lot of inhibitions – but dull, he was not. There was potential.

“When does your mom get home?” asked Rachel.

Bertie coughed. “Nine o’clock, maybe ten. Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking - once we’ve cleaned up and rested for a bit, maybe you’d like to give it another shot?”

That definitely had his attention. “Do you mean the sex, or…”

Maybe he was trying to be subtle, but his line of sight gave the game away. She couldn’t see how red her butt was, but it was still warm to the touch.

They were going to have to establish some ground rules going forward. But for the moment…

“We’ll see.”