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spatula from a hook over the granite work surface. Oooooh no. He makes an impatient gesture to me, noting that I am still upright, and I plunge forward into the rather compromising position he has outlined.
    I don’t like being bent like this with my arse in the air; I feel the humiliation of my plight keenly, and never more so than when Sinclair swishes up behind me and pulls my leggings down around my knees. Thank Christ I didn’t wear a thong today.
    “I think we’ll have a stroke for every minute I was made to wait , Beth,” says Sinclair calmly. “That makes twenty four. A good round dozen for each cheek.”
    I hold my breath, waiting for the onslaught to commence. The first stroke brings it shuddering out in a long squeal as the flat wooden end makes a loud whapping noise on my backside.
    “That really hurts!” I object.
    “Yes,” he says equably, slamming on the second. Incipient heat radiates symmetrically through both hemispheres of my behind and I’m not quite sure I can handle another twenty two strokes. Sinclair accompanies the hard paddling with an encomium against the perils of late rising and sloth, telling me that I will be getting up no later than seven thirty from now on unless I want to greet every day in this painful manner.
    When eventually the twenty fourth stinger is landed, I am gripping the chair so tightly my knuckles are white, chewing my lip to avoid the mortification of crying out too much and amazed at how hot it is possible for a bottom to get without actually catching fire.
    Sinclair replaces the horrid thing on its hook – can’t push fried eggs around a pan with it now without having an inevitable mental association – and drawls, “Lesson learned?”
    “Yes, Sir,” I quiver. No more lie-ins for me. Boo hoo.
    I have only just pulled the leggings over my throbbing bum, wincing as the elastic brushes the tender flesh, when a hard-faced woman of fifty or so materialises in the room.
    “Ah, Nerys,” says Sinclair genially. “Good morning. I need to introduce my new lodger to you. Beth, this is Nerys, my housekeeper. Nerys, this is Beth, who is staying in my guest bedroom for the time being.”
    “Hi,” I say, plastering an ingratiating smile on my flushed face, wondering how much of what just happened she might have heard.
    “Hello,” she says coldly in a strong Welsh accent. 
    “Please let me know, Nerys, if any of Beth’s habits inconven ience you, or cause a problem. I will deal with it.”
    “I will,” says Ner ys. “I’ll start with the bathroom if I may.”
    Sinclair inclines his head gracious ly, like a bloody feudal lord. “Thank you,” he intones. “I really ought to get on now.”
    Nerys leaves the room and Sinclair honours me with a quick p ep talk before leaving for the university. “If I were you, Beth, I’d spend these unaccustomed morning hours making a start on my Laclos essay. My spare key is here; take care of it. I expect any room you use to be left exactly as you found it; Nerys will let me know if anything is out of place.”
    He moves out to the hallway, sorting through some papers on a table and putting them in his briefcase. I follow him, willing him to bugger off so I can go back to bed. Or perhaps I could nip over to Cliveden; give Emily a knock and get eggs on toast in the White Rose Café.
    “I want you back here by seven,” he says, heading for the door.
    “Seven?” I blurt. “Why?”
    “Dinner, ” he says, raising an eyebrow. “You’re cooking.”
    “I’m…not!” I hiccup, aghast, but he is out of the door before my dismay registers on his dial.
     
    *
     
    So what to do now? I am seriously discombobulated by the whole dinner thing. I fan my essay notes out on the living room floor but there is no way I can concentrate on fictional seductions when the real-life version is wedged at the forefront of my mind. Besides, the fierce sting of my wakey-wakey spanking has settled into a somewhat pleasurable warm throb, spreading