‘You are invited to take a bare-bum thrashing,’ the master purred, ‘in front of these friendly witnesses.’

‘What?’ Suze gasped, clutching her face. ‘Oh, no . . . please! Fiona! What is this?’

Fiona had removed her skirtlet, and, nude, was bending over, fiddling at her right thigh. Her bottom melons shone in the shafts of sunlight streaking the shadow, illumining bright red canewelts.

‘Oh, no, Fiona,’ Suze moaned, ‘a sub . . . you?’

Sweat beaded Suzette’s brow, and the upper portion of her breasts, which were bared by her towelling robe, as the humid heat wrestled with the washed cold air from the air-conditioning unit. She looked down, frowning at a glistening rivulet that streaked her upper left thigh, below her robe’s hem. The sweat inched its way towards her knee and, when Suzette flexed her leg, dropped onto the cork floor. Another rivulet advanced, this one on her right thigh, and she wiped it away, rubbing her finger on the white fluffy towelling. Her clock, poised in eminent domain over the pyramid of oils and lotions on her toilette table, gave the time as seven-thirty: half an hour for Suzette to dress for dinner, although, of course, that meant nothing – dinner began when Suzette Shard chose to arrive for it, even in the wilds of French Guiana.

Suzette wriggled, as a further drop of sweat slipped into the cleavage of her breasts, to tickle the bare skin. Sighing, she shucked off her robe, and let it drop to the floor, then wiped the sweat from her breasts. She made a face at her fingernails, manicured to slivers, and devoid of polish or colour, like her toenails. Her naked body gleamed wet in the mirror, as she reached for a cigarette, lit it, and stood to inspect herself, legs akimbo and hands on hips, with the long white fumable dangling at the corner of her mouth, its ember poised over her upturned right nipple. There was no smile on her lips, as she gazed with steely approbation into her own eyes, then down the curves of her body: the perfect breasts, with the big strawberry domes of her nipples, flickering to tenseness, as she scrutinised herself, in a ‘bod check’: flat, muscled belly, long coltish legs, and between them, the massive golden thatch of her pubis, unable to disguise the abnormally large and ripe swelling of the hillock, nor the fat folds of the girl-slice beneath, red and moist even under the drooping and untrimmed tangle of curly blond hairs, that dangled way beneath the indenture of her thighs, and below the firm crescent moons of the buttocks, visible in her thigh gap, and peeping behind the vulval flesh.

Most models shaved their pubis entirely, or trimmed it to some pathetic wisp of hair, a bikini line, but Suze Shard sported the biggest, richest forest of any girl anywhere: wild at bush, wild at heart. To the world, she was simply ‘Suze’, or, ‘The Bottom’, no surname needed. She touched her breasts, plumping them like pillows; patted the thighs and wide hip bones; checked the dimples at her collarbones and navel, then raked a fingernail across her extruded belly-button. Suze drew hard on her cigarette, and turned abruptly, thrusting out her croup, with her eyes fixed on the twin orbs, gleaming a uniform tan in the looking-glass. Her hands clasped her waist, the fingertips almost touching. She expelled the smoke in a long sigh, through her nose, as her fingers crept to the satin fesses, and danced, hesitantly, on the golden mounds of her bare buttocks. She put her hands behind her nape, and swivelled rapidly, from one pose to another, pouting and leering at the mirror, with her buttocks thrust out and up, or open at the crack, daring the watcher to touch . . .

An inch of tobacco ash fell onto her nipple, then cascaded over her belly, wet with sweat. Suze ignored it, continuing to pout and pirouette before the mirror, with the ripe golden croup winking at its likeness, clenching and squirming and trembling in teasing paroxysms. She twirled, to thrust her crotch grossly forward at the mirror, parting the swollen lips, and she grinned briefly and icily, seeing a film of moisture smearing the folds at the opening to her pouch. Her breathing came in low, deliberate gasps, like a big cat’s, and she wiped a finger across her slimed pubic entrance, holding it to the light, to let the fluid sparkle, before smearing it on a paper tissue. She mouthed a kiss to herself in the glass, without smiling, but in cold approval. Then, she thrust her bare buttocks very close, and blew a thick plume of smoke at the glass, so that her head was obscured in the cloud, and only the likeness of her naked arse peach was preserved, taut, muscled and rippling soft, creamy smooth, yet hard, its – massiveness of the most pristine, porcelain daintiness.

The flawless fault line that was the crack of her bum, rippled like a silken hair snapped tight between two perfect skin mountains. Beneath the twin globes of the peach, the skin receded tantalisingly into the smooth hard backs of her thighs, a little mystery of bum flesh tucked underneath the fesses. Not a mark, not a pock or scar or blemish, on that glorious arse-perfection . . . she was ‘The Bottom’ to the tabloids, that is, Suze had the bottom, ‘the ten million dollar tush’ to the Americans, ‘cul de fantaisie’ to the French, ‘die blonde Po-Prinzessin’ to the Germans, ‘Britbum rules the waves’ to the gutter British rags. The broadsheets splashed her silk-swathed moons, to illustrate what, astonishingly, obsessed the readers of tabloids; the thinking journals explained the sociology of Suze, an ice maiden with a toff accent, a bum to die for, rather, to worship, to pray for the smallest wiggle or twitch of those goddess’s orbs, a sign of indulgence to her teased and adoring faithful.

Her haughty cheekbones and wide, full lips rarely condescended to a smile, hinting, like her muscled, athletic body, at ancient English firmness, the meat and muscle of a hardy island people, whose ancestors could have swum across the North Sea to Albion. Suze was more than a goddess: a keeper of sacred mysteries, an oracle, her sacred orbs familiars, rather than appurtenances, with her public scanning blurred photos for assurance that those forty inch globes wiggled and teased as normal, in augury that all was right with the world, and her slaves could go on enjoying their enslavement. American talk shows marvelled at an English rose’s croup insured for ten million dollars . . . can we have a peek? Please, pretty please? Just a little tiny wiggle? Ooh! And now, the logical culmination, her own fragrance and clothing line, thongs and jeans and stockings and panties, everything to adorn and embellish the female bottom: called simply ‘Suze’, designed and marketed in Paris, by Laindoux, the top fashion house, and a photo and video shoot in French Guiana, really exotic jungle stuff, and touted to the max, ‘Will Suze Bare All?’

Her breath came in gasps, and her smoke burned down to the stub. Suze opened the porthole to throw the butt away, and the glow fizzled out, as soon as it entered the hissing grey curtain of rain. A blast of warm air washed her conditioned cabin, and she opened the glass to its widest, relishing her damp bare skin, before returning to her inspection. She knelt on the floor, parting her thighs fully, and lowered her head, with her back-length blond tresses cascading, and her palm scooping them off the cork floor. She looked at her naked buttocks from between her thighs, the tangle of pubic hairs a great slash before the now swollen lips of her vulva, and the bum pucker crinkled jauntily like a sassy young prune, winking from in the crevasse of her perineum. Droplets of rain blew in, and spattered her fesses and crack, beading the skin of the perineum, and the folds of the vulva. Suzette watched, panting very slightly, as a thick drop of girl come emerged from her quivering slice, and plopped onto the cork board, to be absorbed, leaving a dark stain.

She swallowed, and wiped her brow, then somersaulted to her feet. On her bunk was an array of clothing – jeans and T-shirts, mostly – but she passed it, and climbed up the narrow deck beneath the porthole. Outside, the river Maroni hissed, as the rainstorm lashed its waters. Behind, towed by the cruiser, rolled the barge, with masts and rigging, where the photo shoots took place, every day there was sun, with girls draped half nude over rusted bulkheads, barrels or stanchions, ‘for réalisme’. Cordovan the photographer infuriated Suze, and her people – Fiona, her PA, and Dr Teidt, her manager and masseuse, and even Cordovan’s own people, his girlfriend Soubise making a classic moue, at his assurances, throughout the dreary voyage upriver, that they were ‘nearly there’, wherever ‘there’ was. Cordovan claimed to feel it in the light and shade, and the whispering of the rainforest . . . genius must not be hurried.

Only Didier, the grizzled skipper, smiled, while the barefoot creole girls, who cleaned and tended the yacht, seemed indifferent. It was their country, after all. They sent convicts here in the old days, which the French would, the beasts, and the snaps of pampered European models, in comfortless poses recalling unnamable penalties and hardships, was supposed to evoke that réalité. They were supposed to get to the last village in civilisation, with some weird name, beyond which you weren’t allowed to go, but maybe Cordovan had connections to get them further, into the true jungle. The sweat on Suze’s bared flesh would be of real fear, as the arrows swished past her, or so he hinted. Why were the best photographers always bastards? Especially the French ones. What could Soubise see in Cordovan? He was smaller than her, thin and wiry, like the monkeys that screamed from the trees alongside the river.

Suze stood for several minutes, gazing at the rain, her big eyes wide and misted. Her lips pursed, and she shut her eyes briefly. Suze poked her breasts through the porthole, and stood, panting harshly, as the rain whipped her naked skin. She swallowed and gasped repeatedly, until she withdrew the wet teats, clambered higher, and placed her buttocks in the ring of the aperture. With a push, she thrust her bottom out of the porthole, until her doubled-over body was wedged at the hips, and her arse crack was opened fully. The rain scourged her bare arse skin, and Suze’s teats shook violently, their nipples fully erect, like huge plums, as a low mewling moan escaped her lips. The crack of the rain on her naked buttocks rose sharply above the lashing of the water, like hard, plopping strokes of a watery whip. Water flooded the entire crack of her bottom, washing over her vaginal lips, and into the oily pouch between them. Clenching and unclenching with her sphincter muscle, Suze wrinkled her pouch and her anal pucker, so that both orifices opened, to admit a sluice of water. Her fingers crept between her legs, and began to rub the extruded swelling at the top of her fleshy pouch lips, through the wet tangle of hairs. Her breath came faster and faster, as her breasts and belly heaved, and her bare buttocks wriggled outside the porthole, like orchids brought to life by the rains. Her panting grew to a staccato yelp, as she rubbed herself between the legs, with firmer and faster strokes, and her yelp turned to a long, grunting moan, as her eyelids fluttered, and Suze stared at her flushed, drooling face in the looking-glass, and smiled.

‘Suze?’ said a girl’s voice, outside her door. ‘You ready?’

‘Moment, Fiona.’

Suze panted, and slipped her bottom from the rain’s caress. She dropped to the cork, picking up her robe, and draping it round her, in the same fluid movement as she unlocked the door. Fiona Leatherhead stood bare-legged, and barefoot, in the hatchway, wearing a loose, and very thin, cotton dress, that had once been a flour sack of the Compagnie de Farine Guianaise, SA. There was nothing under the flour sack except her skin. As tall as Suze, she was a lush-maned brunette, her billowing hair artlessly secured by a single golden barrette, and the tresses cascading over her naked shoulders. The sack dress clung to her by nothing more than the powerful jutting of her large, upthrust breasts, whose big gooseberry nipples were starkly outlined against the thin fabric. Like Suze’s, her skin was a uniform tan, though slightly darker. The breasts were conic, only a little smaller than Suze’s, but firm, almost to rigidity, and her long legs swept down from a massive croup hanging from wide hip bones, that were a mare’s rather than a colt’s. She lowered her gaze, to inspect the droplets of water plopping from Suze’s bottom.

‘Yah, that’s what I do, shower out the window, or the porthole, or whatever the beastly thing’s called,’ she said, as Suze stepped aside to let her enter. ‘You have to wet each bit of yourself at a time. I do mostly my titties, ’cos that’s absolutely the best fun. With you, I suppose it’s your bum, darling. Be careful –’ she whispered in Suze’s ear ‘– there are arse piranhas in that river, who’d love to bite those forty inch, ten million dollar melons.’

Fiona spoke, or rather drawled, as though a dozen Chelsea romeos awaited her in the King’s Road, but she preferred to joke with the girls. Suze’s lips creased in a phantom smile.

‘My bum is your bread and butter, Fiona,’ she said. ‘Don’t knock it.’

‘What a charming figure of speech,’ Fiona exclaimed. ‘Stop trying to stand on your dignity, Suze, you know it doesn’t become you. Old school chums may stand on each other, but never on their dignity.’

Suze groped in her assortment of casual clothing, without allowing her towelling robe to fall, until Fiona took hold of its lapel, and firmly stripped it from Suze’s body. Suze automatically put her hands to cover her bare pubis and breasts, until Fiona burst out laughing, and Suze laughed too.

‘Where would a virginal St Ursulan be without reflexes?’ said Fiona, patting Suze’s bare bottom, and slithering her fingers through the wet cleft. ‘Hurry up and sling some rags on, then we can go and get pissed, while those ghastly Frenchmen show off, correction, I can get pissed, and you can top up with frog water, poor darling. Your cooze is wet. I suppose you’ve been diddling? Nothing much else to do in this hole. I’ve been at it like a fourth-former, my clit must look like a balloon. Haven’t decided which of the men to bed, you see. Cordovan is tolerable, I suppose, making up in ego what he lacks in looks, and I could replace that Soubise of his without much trouble, as no frog can resist horny English toff pussy, but Didier intrigues me – rough trade, aura of mystery, that foreign legion stuff . . .’

‘Fiona, he’s so ugly, and he must be forty years old,’ Suze exclaimed, flicking through skimpy bikini panties, thongs and loinstrings.

‘Yah,’ Fiona said, licking her teeth. ‘That’s the amusement. You going to bother with knickers?’

‘Well, they ogle me to see if I’m wearing any, and if I’m not, they ogle more,’ Suze replied.

‘Were you diddling?’ Fiona demanded.

‘Damn it, Fiona –’

‘I can always tell,’ said Fiona. ‘You can’t have forgotten the dorm, after lights out, at St Ursula’s. Thighs asunder, wanking to the rafters! I’ll take silence as a yes, Miss Prim. And you know what a slut’s penalty for diddling was. You, of all people, the dorm frigging champion.’

‘Oh, don’t,’ Suze protested. ‘All right, I wanked off a lot, but so did every girl. I think I was victimised. Surely, I didn’t masturbate more than the others? You, for example. I’m not proud of myself, you know. I hated all the punishments for so-called beastliness – so unfair – and hated what they called me. I never liked girls being called sluts, and mucky pups, and the like, just for not having won school colours. But I’m not prim. OK, I was diddling. It’s not something I hope to live down, my reputation, and it’s not something any girl can easily train herself to do without. It’s been such a long time since I had – you know, with a fellow – and I don’t know when I’ll get back to civilisation.’

‘Didier said we should reach Maripasoula tonight. That’s the last outpost of civilisation, or the last ATM, if you need some euros. You’re not allowed to go further upriver without police permission. Maybe we can get laid by some hunky local studs.’

‘Fiona, I’m not like you. I mean, it’s not that I don’t – it’s just that –’

‘You mean, you can live more than twenty-four hours without cock. Instead, you stick your bum out the window, in the rain, and have a good wank.’

‘Damn it again, Fiona. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to –’

Fiona put a finger at the top of Suze’s bottom cleft.

‘Isn’t it as well I don’t work for money,’ she said. ‘That would be too, too vulgar, and you could threaten to sack me for immorality and things, which would be frightfully pas devant.’

‘Your expenses are immoral.’

‘Then maybe I should have a percentage of you instead – a percentage of your bum, naturally. Let’s see, which bit should I take? This bit, or here –’ she slid her finger down the crack of Suze’s buttocks, while prising the melons gently open ‘– or this bit? That looks nice. It reminds me of the sixth form, when a crowd of us used to go skinny-dipping in the river. And we would walk around in the nude, picking flowers in the meadow. All those bare bums, and yours was always the sweetest.’

‘It was a lovely time,’ said Suze. ‘Naked in the meadow, with the flowers, and the river. So innocent.’

‘And then we had a contest, to see who could keep a posy of flowers clenched between her bum cheeks the longest, and you cheated, you stuck the stems right up your bumhole.’

She prodded Suze’s anal pucker with her fingernail, making it writhe.

‘Oh, you! I did not. Fiona, stop. That makes me feel all funny.’

‘All right, Miss Prim,’ said Fiona, withdrawing her finger, ‘but I bet that’s not what you say to Dr Teidt, when she gives you your morning massage. I know what she does. It’s quite exquisitely wicked. I’m sure the trollop dyes her hair blond.’

‘I assure you, she doesn’t, and she’s not a trollop. She’s a fully qualified chiropractor from Rostock University.’

‘How would you know? About the hair.’

‘I see her . . . down there. She massages me in the nude. Both of us. It’s for the healing aura. As for hurting, well, that’s the point. It keeps my posture upright, and my thighs apart.’

‘I imagine it would.’

Suze slipped on a T-shirt, and began to roll a generous, but high cut, pair of bikini panties, in frilly pink lace, over her thighs. She smiled.

‘I believe you’re jealous.’

‘Courtiers are supposed to be rivals,’ Fiona answered. ‘That’s what my laptop thingy has been feeding the editors back in London. I’ve already got us all in a love triangle, no, a love quadrangle, really, only you are always the ice maiden of St Ursula’s, the pure, undefiled bottom of Britannia, and it is me and the German slugging it out for Didier’s twelve inches . . . don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed. Or maybe you’ve been drooling over that young cookboy, Hyacinthe, a good thumb bigger than Didier? I got some lovely snaps of la Teidt’s derriere, with just the hint of el flabbo. “Buns of the Huns” I captioned it. I make a point of peeking at girls’ bums, for, as you know from school, the bum cannot lie. That’s the point of this cruise up the arsehole of nowhere. The British public loves an eccentric expedition, Stanley and Dr Livingstone, Col Fawcett of the Amazon, the jolly good chap who went awol not far from here, in search of lost cities of silver – our angle is, will The Bottom make it back in one piece, or I should say, two pieces? And is she going to bare . . . ?’

‘Am I? I’m not sure . . .’

‘Yes, you are. It’s the media climax, darling. After so much teasing and stroking, there must be a sigh of patriotic satisfaction. I’ve made your bum the national bum, by convincing my tame media chaps that the British male worships girls with big bottoms, but is too polite to insist on the point in mixed company. Our true national sport, which unites the classes, is spanking bottoms, le vice anglais, which we adore more than anything. So does everyone else, but only we British manage the triumphant pretence that it isn’t sensuous. How do you think I keep my media chaps tame?’

‘You’re make me nervous when you talk like that,’ Suze said, fastening her white chinos over her croup, with the thin fabric showing her pink panties underneath. ‘As if St Ursula’s wasn’t bad enough. Don’t tell me you spank men’s bottoms, Fiona.’

‘You didn’t know the half of St Ursula’s,’ Fiona said. ‘You were lucky I was your dorm prefect. Anyway, first step of male-taming is, the fuck of the century, no footling about, pants off and thighs asunder, over the office desk. Nothing original about that. But many girls tease first, and when the deed’s done, they’ve nothing left in the arsenal. You get away with your tease because it’s you – you really are the ice maiden . . .’

‘Oh, Fiona, stop it. You know my career comes first, a long way ahead of boyfriends. I won’t be a trophy.’

‘. . . but I get the squelching over with, then tease. I make them want more by not needing them. Men love disdain. And if they are really soppy, it’s a brisk lathering on the bare bum, over my knee. Always in charge, no crushes or attachments or emotional blackmail, or whispers to wifey in Woking. Englishmen will do anything for a haughty girl who allows them to get soppy, and spanks them for being naughty little brats. So, your nates could be notorious all by themselves, but I ensure, via the beastly little oiks who feed the British public their news, that they are the only nates notorious. You’re the toff with the toffee apples.’

‘Fiona, I wish you’d stop talking about spanking. It’s so gross.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re unaware of how monsieur le capitaine keeps these sulky little creole maidens in line.’

‘Didier? He doesn’t.’

‘He bally well does. It’s a big boat, oops, yacht, with plenty of soundproof bulkheads. Spanks them on the bare bum, for each and every infraction of his penal code.’

‘I don’t believe you, Fiona. You’re the tease.’

‘Dare say he’d be glad to demonstrate,’ Fiona said. ‘You ought to know – how else do you keep a girl obedient? Quick, no nonsense what for, on her wriggling juicy bare. Only language women understand.’

She cupped Suze’s arse peach with her palm, tracing the clinging panty fabric at the base of the cleft, then pressed a forefinger into Suze’s softly yielding perineum, between the trembling meaty fesses. Suze shivered.

‘Now, hurry up, Shard, you mucky little pup. It’s time for dinner.’

‘Yes, miss,’ said Suze.

Her stockinged feet splayed on teetering six inch stiletto heels, the shoes of red patent leather. Also perched on such heels were the girls called fillers, backing models in Suze’s photoshoots. They served at table, piquantly dressed, at Cordovan’s whim, in perky little French maid’s uniforms, with high frilled skirts, black nylon stockings over black heels, and dripping with perspiration into their tight white cotton blouses, open low at the breasts, to leave their teats, trussed in uplift bras, well on show. Beside Soubise sat Dr Teidt, her blond hair pinned up, and her breasts, almost as large as Suze’s, restrained in a tight beige linen business suit, whose skirt revealed six inches of thigh flesh above her knees, encased in shiny bronze nylons.

The table was lit by candles, and laid with sparkling silver upon crisp linen. Fans whirred, and a battery of blue lights fizzled, as they sucked and devoured their insect prey. Cordovan stood, as the girls took their seats, and lifted their glasses of champagne. Fiona had one poured at once, and sipped heartily, while Suze toyed with her glass of bubbly water. Grunts and laughter echoed faintly from the galley below, where the proletariat, as Cordovan called the servants, assistants, and deckhands, took their meals. The meal was served quickly: soup, salad, and fried fish, with grissini to nibble, and real French baguettes with Normandy butter. Wines were a choice of muscadet or moselle, and Fiona had both. Suze ate sparingly, merely toying with the buttery fish, until Fiona ordered her to finish her plate, or expect a telling-off. Grimacing, Suze obeyed, and soon her plate was clean.

‘And your greens. You’re a growing girl,’ Fiona admonished, emptying her glass.

‘I’m twenty-one, Fiona,’ Suze retorted, ‘just like you. I’ve grown.’

Cordovan laughed.

‘It would be a delight, and a wonder, to observe that heavenly cul grow still more,’ he said. ‘You English are so miserly with your secrets. How does your rainy island produce such vigorous flowers of female beauty? Perhaps it is indeed something to do with greens. You will be pleased to hear that I am most satisfied with our progress on the shoot. The ambience is taking hold . . . far from civilisation, even the outposts of Cayenne, or St Laurent du Maroni, my models ooze a loose tropical languor, or lasciviousness, a casual display of the moist, sweating female body, that slowly becomes that of a jungle animal, drooling and heartless as it displays its naked power, oblivious of all but its prey, and its fascination.’

‘Prey,’ said Suze. ‘Meaning . . .’

‘The vast and ignorant public, consumers of the image, the god that rules our age of the late decadence. Let Homer or Shakespeare sing your praises, Miss Shard, and the public is deaf. Let them glimpse a single image by Cordovan, one alone, culled from thousands, and they are your slaves.’

‘They are the slaves of her bottom,’ said Fiona. ‘Paying slaves, we hope.’

‘Is not the bottom, as you quaintly put it, the very essence of the female soul?’ murmured Cordovan. ‘Think what those two divine orbs of flesh can do – they can tantalise, command, reduce a beholder to submission, or part, to reveal still deeper, innermost fleshy secrets; they can squash and suffocate, or themselves be the organ of submissive punishment, wriggling and reddening under chastising spanks – should a girl be naughty, as girls will, and demand correction! – on perfect expression of female obedience. In the Platonic sense, it can be argued that all female bottoms are imperfect replicas of the one, divine, and ultimate bottom. Until yours was created, Miss Shard. Yours, the absolute bottom, to spank which, as it were, would be the ultimate spirituality.’

‘I don’t care what you do in your spare time,’ Suze replied, ‘but the bottom is not up for any spirituality.’

Soubise shifted on her haunches, and her face wore a sullen moue.

‘Why, mademoiselle,’ Cordovan exclaimed, as a maid poured more wine, ‘what you think I do in my precious spare time?’

‘I didn’t mean –’

The maids hovered at table, each attentive to the diners, and filling the glasses of both Dr Teidt and Fiona with regularity. They walked in stiff postures, their legs well parted at the crotch, and rigid beneath them, with their torsos bent, and their croups thrust in the air, like wading birds. Their angle meant that each girl’s scalloped uplift bra revealed a generous portion of her teat flesh. Cordovan placed a finger on each of two maids’ arse clefts, and both girls stood immobile at his touch. He jabbed one finger deep between the arse cheeks of a sulky brunette, wrenching her panties, and she squealed, tipping wine onto the linen napery. Didier and Fiona laughed; Dr Teidt smiled icily; Soubise glowered, and looked at the girl in disgust.

‘What does anything mean, here on the savage river, so far from human ken? What keeps us human, except duty, and discipline? There are many forms of discipline. One is truthfulness – out here, each dependent on one another, no one may be permitted the luxury of vainglory.’

‘Suze’s truth is her bottom,’ said Fiona. ‘She reveals herself in it.’

‘Agreed. But lesser females, not so honest, must be taught a lesson against false modesty. Otherwise, female pride afflicts us all, and civilisation breaks down – for example, if a maid spills wine, what arrogance is next? Do you know, Michelle?’

He addressed the errant maid, with his finger still tickling between her fesses. Swallowing, Michelle shook her head.

‘I think you do. Attend me in my cabin at once, after dinner, maid.’

‘Wait,’ said Suze. ‘Yes, we should be honest and everything, so it’s only fair you explain, Cordovan. What do you propose to do with Michelle?’

Cordovan smiled.

‘Don’t you know, Miss Suzette?’ said Dr Teidt. ‘The girl shall have a lesson in manners. Not a painless lesson, but one which shall leave no imperfections on her attractive croup, and which, as a doctor, I recommend, for healthy circulation, and to stimulate the gluteal nerve ends, which govern the entire female nervous system. We have been voyaging for a week, and I think have all come to know each other sufficiently, for a certain openness. If nothing else, the lascivious poses of the girls, the way they shamelessly extrude their buttocks for the eye of the camera, have revealed to me their innermost natures. Even yours, Miss Suzette.’

Her finger joined Cordovan’s, in stroking the girl’s panties, and kneading the quivering nates beneath. The girl gasped, with a sobbing chuckle in her throat, but said nothing. Dr Teidt crossed her thighs, with a slither of nylon, briefly revealing blond pubic tufts, extruded beyond her sliver of powder blue panties, swollen and glistening at her crotch, before she smoothed down her tight linen skirt.

‘Gluteal, doctor?’ Suze said.

‘She means your bum,’ answered Fiona.

‘You don’t mean . . .’

‘Say it, Suze,’ said Fiona.

All eyes watched Suze’s face, with Soubise’s lips curled in a sneer, and Suze blushed.

‘Anybody would think you meant . . . spanking,’ she blurted. ‘But you’re joking, Cordovan. Aren’t you?’

‘Didier is captain of the ship,’ Cordovan said, ‘and I am master. Both of us agree on traditional methods of keeping order. There is nothing to hide. On the contrary, I am sure Michelle will give permission for her discipline to be witnessed. It shall make a pleasant postprandial diversion, with coffee and liqueurs. But let us ask Michelle’s colleagues. How many of you maids consider Michelle to have . . . let the side down?’

Each maid raised her hand.

‘Why, this is like something from St Ursula’s!’ Suze cried.

‘And you, Michelle?’

Eyes downcast, Michelle nodded.

‘Yes, master,’ she whispered.

‘Soubise,’ Suze exclaimed, ‘how can you go along with this kind of thing?’

‘Soubise is responsible for administering the lessons,’ Cordovan said. ‘She is, if you like, my first mate, and, frankly, needs my presence to restrain her enthusiasm for disciplining the other ranks. She does not approve of disobedient girls, nor think that any but herself should call me “master”, and her lessons reflect that point of view. She tends to lay it on hard. There is no jealousy like that of one slave for another. Am I right, Soubise?’

The haughty creole tossed her mane in disgust. Cordovan removed his finger from Michelle’s arse, and flicked it with his thumb, against Soubise’s massive titty-swelling. The fingernail snapped on her bare flesh.

‘Right, Soubise?’ Cordovan drawled.

‘Oui, maître,’ hissed Soubise.

Michelle’s croup was a golden tan, yet slightly paler than the small of her back, with a bikini line faintly visible, not entirely eradicated by the naked sunbathing, that the models practised together on the yacht’s deck. The smooth bare buttocks were framed by her pink garter belt and straps, and the frilly stocking tops, beneath which her shiny nylon legs draped awkwardly over Soubise’s thigh. Soubise lifted her leg, and slapped it against Michelle’s calves, trapping her feet, and straightening her posture for the spanking. The girl’s pink panties drooped like a rope bridge between her quivering thighs, with the gusset stained dark. Her head twisted round, to look at Cordovan, who stood with a cigar and brandy glass, overlooking the seated spanker and her subject. Michelle’s face was sullen, yet her eyes were wide and pleading.

‘Just a spanking, master, yes?’ she murmured.

‘We’ll see,’ Cordovan said. ‘I had in mind the strap.’

‘Oh, no, master. Please,’ blurted the girl.

‘I was going to add, unless you have any objections,’ he purred. ‘Obviously, you do, so we must content ourselves with the pretty spectacle of your bottom spanked.’

‘It’s not my role to object, master,’ said Michelle, through gritted teeth. ‘I worry that strapping leaves marks, and might spoil my bum for your photographs.’

Cordovan exhaled a plume of smoke.

‘We humans have penetrated deeply into the wilderness,’ he said, ‘and cannot remain unchanged. Photography must reflect the savagery that is gradually unleashing itself in us, even in The Bottom herself.’

He bowed to Suze, sitting beside Fiona and Didier on Cordovan’s leather couch. His stateroom was luxuriously furnished, and softly lit, as if he was at home in Paris, the lounge leading to a bathroom, and separate sleeping chamber. Dr Teidt perched on a leather armchair, her breasts poking forward, and eyes bright, as she scrutinised the girl’s naked buttocks.

‘Here in the jungle, The Bottom becomes more than an empress, she is a goddess, her orbs objects of the most devout and repulsive worship, attended by slaves, subject to whiplashes at her slightest whim. In my photography, The Bottom herself is pristine and sacred, but the fesses of her servants may – must – show the degradation these abject wenches will endure, for the privilege of adoring the world’s most glorious fesses. Watchers will feast their eyes on the weals borne by naked slave girls, and they shall long to be in those girls’ place, the object of their goddess’s vengeance. In a word, from now on, the naked buttocks of my models will show the “Suze” range of bodily adornments in all their awful perfection: the embellishment of scarred and suffering girlflesh, beautiful in its humiliance. People will flock to buy the fabrics and scents of that humiliance, hoping that, by adorning themselves, they may touch the tiniest part of The Bottom.’

‘I say, Cordovan,’ blurted Suze, ‘isn’t that laying it on a bit thick? The poor girl only spilled a little wine. I thought she was just going to get a bit of a playful spanking, in fun . . . I mean. It’s only a photo shoot.’

Her voice ebbed, and she gulped, as her eyes fixed on the firm tan melons of the subdued girl’s arse, trembling as it rose, bare and straining, towards the hand of the spanker. Her fingers pressed her lips, and stroked them, as she glanced at Cordovan’s thunderous visage.

‘I intend to lay it on a bit thick,’ hissed Cordovan. ‘Only a photo shoot, Miss Shard? You and I, the world’s perfect female bottom, and the world’s greatest portrayer, indeed, priest, of that organ’s mysteries? Michelle’s croup shall tomorrow bear the fruits of her impetuosity – and shall assume the role of first filler, beside you, Miss Shard. The pristine, creamy purity of your pantied nates, beside the scarred and wretched insolence of your bondsmaiden’s naked ones. With Michelle’s agreement, of course.’

‘Really, master?’ Michelle exclaimed. ‘Oh, yes! Thank you.’

‘A simple spanking, then,’ said Cordovan, with a leering grimace at Suze, ‘to warm those nates to a pretty pink. Then, when Michelle’s bottom is hot and red and squirming nicely, and – delicious subtlety – she is begging me to let her change her mind, then, the awful solemnity of the twin-thonged rubber strap. Nature has provided the disciplinarian with a wealth of implements for chastising errant bottoms – the leather whip, the bamboo, the wooden paddle, or the cane, beloved of you English. The rubber quirt has the advantage of flexibility and lightness, yet extreme severity of weal. A broad thong leaves vivid marks on the punished bottom, yet they do not disfigure for as long as cane or whip weals. She will not know how many lashes she is to receive, for I shall decide that on the basis of her composure under spanking. Girlish squeals and undisciplined wriggling shall attract a harsher chastisement. The spanking itself is at Mademoiselle Soubise’s discretion, and at least a hundred smacks are usually given.’

‘Usually?’ Suze cried. ‘Wait a minute, Cordovan, this has gone far enough. I think you should explain –’

‘Permission to address Miss Shard, master?’ blurted Michelle.

‘Permission granted, girl,’ Cordovan replied.

Eyes moist Michelle turned, to look at Suze.

‘Please, Miss Shard, try to understand. To you, the girls are just extras – props, furnishings, whatever. But we’ve had to fight to get on this shoot. There were contests, run-offs, and only the very best girls, with the very best bottoms, got to work with you. All along, it was made clear, and demonstrated fully, that shipboard discipline would be tough, that it meant spanking, and more, as part of the job of promoting you, miss. I didn’t endure all those smarting bottoms and tears, for nothing. And the funny thing is, any of us will tell you, after a while, a girl gets to like her spankings, or her strappings, or worse – even to crave the warm throbbing glow, after a really sound thrashing on the bare. It has to be on the bare, I don’t know why. It’s more shaming, I suppose, or more liberating, when a girl is spanked with no knickers, though it may come as a surprise to you. So please don’t spoil things. Don’t worry, Miss Shard – your pristine million dollar bottom will never have to endure spanking.’

‘Why, you cheeky –’ Suze gasped, rising to her feet, to be restrained by Fiona. ‘OK, Cordovan, lay into her. Let the bitch squirm, if that’s what she wants. I want to see that bare bum red and trembling, and tears on her cheeky face. And strap her hard, so she has the welts to show for it . . .’

Trembling, Suze slumped into her seat, and looked aghast at Fiona.

‘I’m sorry, Fiona,’ she mumbled. ‘I don’t know – it’s not like me –’

‘Oh, sure,’ Fiona said, stroking Suze’s thigh. ‘You were just surprised at what Michelle said, about being spanked on the bare. Right, Suze? As if you don’t remember SBWs at St Ursula’s – slut’s bot whopped – and the miscreant girl had to cry out “willing and able” before her strapping began?’

‘Let the chastisement begin,’ said Cordovan.

Michelle smiled, a small smile of satisfaction, and closed her eyes tight. Soubise pursed her lips, and restrained Michelle with one hand holding down her nape, while her other arm stretched high and straight, with the fingers flexing, before assuming a rigid shape, with the fingers spaced slightly apart. Her arm fell, the hand right above the pressed tight flesh of Michelle’s bum cleft, and there was a whistle of air through Soubise’s spaced fingers, before her hand met the naked skin of Michelle’s bottom. Crack! Michelle’s bum jerked, and a livid pink palm print appeared instantly, across the golden skin, now clenching and slightly trembling.

‘Uhh,’ gasped Michelle.

‘Uhh . . .’

‘Oh . . .’

As her bare nates reddened under the spanks, Michelle’s breath assumed a rapid, shallow panting, but, though her bum writhed in more and more distress, with the buttocks squirming and clenching, as though to escape from Soubise’s grip at ankles and neck, nevertheless she did not squeal. Her legs jerked rigid at each spank, slamming her ankles against Soubise’s imprisoning calf, and the spank’s force drove her unpantied labia against Soubise’s thigh. Crack! Crack! Crack!

‘Oh . . . oh . . .’ Michelle moaned, her face red, under her jerking mane of hair, and its skin matched by the darkening crimson of her bare spanked bottom.

Soubise shifted, drawing up her robe, so that Michelle’s naked pubis now rested on her own bare thigh; Soubise’s skin shone with a film of moisture, where Michelle’s hairy gash pressed against her. Crack! Crack! Crack! The creole girl’s arm rose and fell, like a metronome, and the lights in the stateroom dimmed to a golden glow, suffused by the lazy smoke from Cordovan’s cigar.

‘Michelle is right, of course,’ he purred. ‘For the spanking to be spiritually, and not just physically, effective, it must be taken on the full bare. Observe her exquisite squirming of those juicy naked fesses – she is morally naked and helpless, her bottom has no place to hide. You, Miss Shard, have never known such submissive ecstasy.’

‘Certainly not!’ Suze blurted. ‘Ecstasy . . . ?’

‘Uhh . . . uhh . . .’

‘Observe her face,’ Cordovan said.

Michelle’s head jerked back, tossing her mane, at each of Soubise’s spanks, which the creole girl placed squarely upon the imprint of the last, without diffusing the chastisement evenly over the bare bottom. The nates were pale at the circumference, but glowed savagely in the central cleft, where repeated spanks had raised a pattern of finger-shaped welts, puffed and rising from the skin’s surface. The girl’s face was flushed hot, her eyes closed, and her mouth slack and drooling.

‘Does she not look like a female on heat?’

Suze swallowed, and shifted her thighs, as she stared at the writhing bare croup. Crack! Crack! Crack! the spanking was past fifty slaps, as Soubise’s ferocity grew. The spanker’s mouth was twisted in a sneer, and her eyes were wide, fixed on the imprint of her fingers, flaming on the girl’s naked buttocks.

‘That’s . . . that’s not a fair comparison,’ Suze mumbled.

‘Isn’t it?’ said Fiona. ‘I’d have thought it rather hit the spot.’