Lurker's Birthday

Lurker's Birthday

Julie and I bought a new computer this weekend and some of the software was already loaded, so I poked around a bit to see what we'd got. That's when I came across a folder called WordPad-Diary. Who could resist?

When I found this entry, I had to show it to Julie right away and I knew we'd be posting it before too long. Hope someone out there at SSS is as interested as we are.

***

Dear Diary (it said),

I was sitting at my computer tonight, happily cruising my favorite website, when the doorbell rang. I looked out and there was a policewoman with a respectable-looking couple, so I opened the door.

"Internet police, ma'am, may we come in?" Since they were in already, it wasn't much of a question.

"Who?" I asked. I didn't even know the Internet had police. I looked at the couple she had brought with her - a tall Anglo woman, maybe a banker or real estate agent, and a quiet, heavy-set Hispanic man. Respectable, you know? Like someone from church. The officer was a short woman, not much taller than me but with muscles where I'm round, so she did look like she could handle herself.

"Internet police," she repeated. "You've been lurking on the SSS news group for one year as of 8:00 this evening, without posting."

"Would there be something wrong with that?" I asked defensively, trying to cover my shock. "There's nothing wrong with listening." I was hoping that I was not admitting anything, without saying something really stupid, and I like the term "listening" better than "lurking" anyway. After all, SSS was on my screen in the bedroom at this very moment so I couldn't very well pretend I'd never been there.

"Well, people are free to listen but responses are what feed our writers, as I think you know."

"Lots of people respond!" I countered, realizing too late that I should just keep my mouth shut. So I'm a slow learner, I've had this problem all my life - keeping my mouth shut, I mean.

"That's not the issue here," I was told. "Lurking without posting may not exceed one year in duration. It's in the bylaws... certainly you've read the bylaws?"

"Yes, well, um, I was going to, I've been waiting until they're posted again."

"They're posted regularly, ma'am. And they specifically state that the duration of lurking may not exceed 365 consecutive calendar days, exclusive of February 29th."

"Okay, so what? You're going to kick me off? You're going to de-lurk me?" I tried to sound a lot braver than I felt. I did not really want to be exposed to the world of SSS and I certainly didn't want to be kicked off. I was hoping they'd give me a choice, I could make up a name and come out if I had to.

"Not exactly. We consider this to be your news group birthday and are here to treat it as such. This is Deborah and this is Jorge," she waved, indicating her companions.

My jaw fell to the floor. "I don't think so!" I demanded, "Get out of my apartment!"

Officer Brunswick, as her badge identified her, seemed unmoved. She flipped open a small notebook.

"On February 17th, you copied a story from the board to other electronic medium. This was specifically and explicitly forbidden by the author. The evidence, we believe, is on your hard drive at this very moment. Do any of the following phrases sound familiar to you? 'Listen here, little missy... who do you think... you won't be sitting... how dare you... if I ever... won't forget this one'?"

I got an icy feeling across my seat. There were more than a few stories like that on my hard drive. I never had any idea it was against the law.

"Everyone does that," I stated definitively. "You can't single me out."

"Perhaps people do. We'll not argue that point. As far as singling people out, we are prepared to make you a test case for Internet property rights." As a wave of horror swept over me she verbalized my very thoughts - "You can see yourself on AP top stories - with a photo, perhaps."

Instinctively I covered my bottom with both hands and pushed it as far away from this trio as it could get. Tears sprang to my eyes. I could not have people know about me, I'm not the type to be famous, much less infamous.

"So, shall we see you in court - and on My Yahoo 'Stories of the Hour'?" Brunswick asked.

"Or?" I half-wailed, half-moaned. She waved again to Deborah and Jorge.

They didn't look wicked - more serious, disapproving, perhaps, and a little disappointed. My mind spun as I tried to figure out what could be going on. As I said, Deborah was tall and Anglo and looked very competent and respectable. She wasn't in any kind of scary or sexy costume, just a woman going to work. At an office.

I say an office because Jorge probably works outdoors. He had a deep tan and very hard hands, I couldn't help but notice. His shoulders looked like he did a lot of lifting and not weight-lifting, work lifting, I mean. His middle looked liked he had lifted a few beers in his time as well. His clothes were clean and not worn, even though they didn't look new, so he looked dressed up, especially his shirt, which was orange and red with a Latin-western design. He still had most of his thick dark hair and his sideburns were way too long. I couldn't help but notice that behind the requisite oversized belt buckle was a wide, heavy, and somewhat overworked leather belt.

I thought of the stories I had most often cruised and a light went on. I almost laughed! These two were supposed to be my parents, me their daughter. What was funny about it is that my father was born in California and works in a bank (I probably thought of one of his co-workers, seeing Deborah) and my mother is a housewife, as short and plumper than I am. She's the one from Mexico and only works a few days a week, at the market. It was almost like they'd gotten my parents reversed.

Then the unfunny thought occurred to me - what always, always went on in these stories. I felt that exact sensation they always describe - a combination of glistening excitement and abject fear. I thought instantly about what panties I had on - clean, at least, even if they did lack sex appeal. Why I should worry about appealing to these people, I don't know. Why I even went along with it, I don't know. I guess in a way I wanted to. A year of reading these stories had gotten me more than ready.

Even as I thought back to a story or two, Jorge went over to my couch and sat down like he owned the place. His legs were well out in from of him and he looked like he was on a throne. Without a word he patted his solid thighs and motioned me over with a look. For some reason I drifted in his direction.

As soon as I got close his arm caught me under the seat and in an instant I was across his lap. I thought of hot stories with belts and switches and very embarrassing positions and hoped and prayed this wasn't one of those. I really didn't want that, I really, really didn't. Thankfully I still had my jeans up when he smacked me the first time.

"So, little lady, you know it all now, do you?" he started. I didn't answer as much harder smacks fell on my seat. I could feel how easily he was spanking me and already it hurt. I felt sticky from the whole situation and that made me feel dirty. Feeling dirty always makes me feel like I should be spanked, which didn't make me feel any less sticky.

The spanks got hard and he'd just started. I tried to take it.

"Maybe one more lesson might still teach you something," he told me, spanking quickly.

"Umpft," I responded. "Umpft, umpft, umpft."

When I read these stories, I always imagine that I'd get extra swats because my seat is big, not one of these "his large hand covered her entire bottom" types. It's not a good feeling, exactly, but it does excite me in a weird way, that I would have to be spanked all the more. But he was spanking just in a few spots and I found myself starting to fight him, I had to. Already I was crying some and it didn't look like he was going to let up. I asked, begged, cried for him to stop.

"Oh, no, chiquita, you still have much to learn," he assured me but he did start moving around. I was so embarrassed by how many places he could fit his hand on the target I was giving him. Through my jeans it didn't really sting but it hurt! I was really getting so sore and I begged some more, until I thought of the fact that when he did stop, my pants were coming down! I was in no shape to be seen, I'd die! I quickly switched to "sorry's" and tried to be more compliant. But it was so hard with him spanking me like that!

He seemed to have found the softest parts and was staying in those few spots. I couldn't help kicking and even swinging my arm but he didn't even notice. He held me across the back like I was a child, and where his arm held me, I didn't move a bit. His soft, firm voice kept reassuring me how much better I was getting with every painful spank. Finally he stopped but only to reach for the top of my jeans. I was sweaty and more, I was crying with pain and sobbing with embarrassment and I felt so sorry for all those girls I had read about and envied. My squirms were in a way that was probably turning him on, even though he'd stopped spanking me.

I have never been more relieved than when the hand at the top of my jeans pulled me off his lap.

"Do you think you can be good now?" he asked very seriously. I assured him I would, that I'd be very, very good and that I was very sorry and sorry he had had to spank me. He just told me to remember that it could always happen again.

I had fallen out of half of my bra and turned away to fix it and to give myself a chance to regain my composure and stop crying. If he'd sent me to the corner I'd have gone gratefully but that was not in store for me.

Deborah spoke with authority as she stated "We'll be wanting some privacy, I believe." She opened her purse and withdrew a wooden hairbrush and the scenario seemed chillingly familiar. "Will you wait for me in your room?" she asked, but it wasn't a question.

I was half glad to get out of there, in fact I closed the door behind me, I was so out of it, but on the other hand I was all the more scared and very sore already. Deborah opened the door and came in, closing it again behind her. The hairbrush, of course, was still in her hand.

"Are you going to take those down, or am I?" she asked menacingly. By now I knew I had no choice around here, so I did what she wanted, except slowly.

She sat.

"If I have to take those down for you, you are going to be the sorriest young lady in this city tonight," she predicted. I started crying again but at least the door was closed. I squeezed my legs together in fear and before I could move she stood up and wrapped an arm around my waist. "Oh, so that's how it'll be, will it?"

"No! No!" I cried, oblivious to the two outside, "I'll do it!"

"Too late," she informed me and my seat was bare and I was back facing downward. "Missy, you have just made a very, very big mistake." Deborah slapped me hard right where I was sorest and I howled. "Stop that!" she commanded. "Settle down!" A rain of spanks fell on my unprotected seat, right on the bare skin. They hurt!

She eased up some until I did settle down and finally she stopped all together. I couldn't resist a little breath of relief. "I don't want to do this at all," she lied, "and I am certainly going to make sure that I only have to do this once! And as for that foolishness about your panties, you know what I'm going to do about that!"

I was begging and "please'ing" and asking her not to but it didn't seem to make any difference. I guess I should have known but at the time I thought it was worth trying. Deborah waited and waited but then finally asked if I was ready to get the hairbrush. Of course I said no but she repeated herself exactly and followed it with, "That's two." I gulped hard, knowing I'd have to say it. Then she was already repeating, "Anna, are you ready to have me spank you with my hairbrush?" again. I said "Yes, yes!" trying to interrupt her but still she said, "That's three."

What happened after that I can hardly describe, not that I've forgotten a minute of it. She spanked with a snap that made each and every swat go right through me - I couldn't believe something could hurt that much! She did kind of the same thing as Jorge, spanking those few bad spots at first for a long time, then moving around. When she got low and kind of inside my cheek, I begged her, "not there, pleaseeee not there!"

She assured me that I would be spanked there and gave me a bunch right there to prove it and then another big bunch just on the other side. She promised me that "every square inch of my bottom" was going to get "every swat I had earned for it." At that point I just had to give up, I couldn't fight her anymore. I just lay across her lap and sobbed, bouncing from the reflex to her terrible stinging snaps.

I guess I would have been done then if I had cooperated better, because she finally stopped. She told me again how much she hated to do this and patted me with the brush. I jumped, even though it was light, and she sort of laughed at me. She said she didn't appreciate my making her job harder with my foolishness about my panties. She put her hand on the cheek away from her and smoothed it upward, pulling it flat down below. "And now I am going to make you very sorry you didn't cooperate when you needed to," she informed me.

"I AM sorry!" I protested but to no avail. I started struggling again but she had me completely under control. And it was true, I was sorry, sorry I hadn't pulled down my panties, sorry I needed to be spanked, sorry I read all those stories and got soft feeling while all those poor girls got spanked. I tried to tell her but she was having none of it.

"You're not sorry yet, not by a long way. You just think you are but just wait until I've really spanked you," she threatened. She pulled my cheek up again and started spanking, just in that one spot. Hard and stingy both at once and I was already soooo sore! Then she moved to the other side and I had to get each of the swats again over there!

My breathing was both panting and sobbing, I thought I would hyperventilate but she held me while I calmed down. She reached up and stroked my hair but then, with a voice that chilled me, she asked, "How old are you, Anna?"

I knew what that meant and I started sobbing again but this time she just waited. And waited. I told her, "Twenty four."

"Twenty," she said, tapping my bottom. "Four."

"And! How many times did I have to ask if you were ready?"

"Nooooooooo!" I wailed, "Owwwwwwww!" as she brought the brush down hard, "Two. Two!" I insisted and I thought I was being fair.

Those swats were so much harder! I couldn't believe the earlier ones weren't the hardest she could spank - though at least these didn't snap like the ones I'd already had. She counted out the twenty-four very hard swats - twenty-four on each side! I should have been done but she repeated her question.

"How many times did I have to ask if you were ready?"

"Three," I sobbed piteously. I didn't even care anymore, this spanking would never be over. Then she swatted me and I started caring again. She repeated her first two sets, acting like she hadn't already given them to me - and then, then! This new mom they'd given me spanked out a third set right in the middle! I couldn't even fight her, I just had to lie there jerking back and forth and crying and being very, very sorry.

She had spanked me for so long that when she was done I didn't really believe it. She let me lie there and cry and then slump down between her legs and cry some more. After a while she stood me up, handed me my poodle from my bed and stood me in the corner, where I leaned with my head against the wall.

After a long time I looked around and she was still sitting there. She got up and found me my robe and put it around me, then led me out to where the others were still waiting.

They stood up and Jorge looked at me sympathetically, I thought. As well he should. Deborah got her purse and at long last the dreaded hairbrush disappeared from sight.

"We'll be going - for now," Brunswick warned. "You had best de-lurk quickly."

I immediately agreed, trying to look contrite and sincere. Once the door was closed, I headed right back to the computer. So I had to stand, I probably sit too much anyway. What I need to do, I figured, was find just the right stories. No telling when they'd be back and I certainly wasn't going to read the by-laws. Now let's see, there was one about a handsome sheik.....

***

Julie looked at me speculatively. "Do you think this policy has ever encouraged anyone to respond, instead of just listening?"

"NOOO!" we laughed in unison.