Spank: The Improbable Adventures of George Aloysius Brown by Alan Daniels Page B

other elements you mentioned, comedy, satire, history. My intent is not just to titillate, but to entertain. "
    " Go on, I must say it all sounds rather interesting. "
    So he explained to her about his hero Dr. Whom and his adventures in space and time with some of history's most famous characters.
    Dolly poured him some more tea from her china teapot.
    " These women that he meets on his travels, Cleopatra and the like, does he spank them? " She was now saying the word with resonance, giving it the full percussive treatment. If you did not know her to be a very proper lady you might surmise she was beginning to like the sound of it.
    " Not all of them, most of them. "
    " So these….. spankings….. Dolly seems to be having trouble sitting still, are all in historical context, then? "
    He told her about Catherine de Medici, his visits to the National Museum and all the research he had done. When he had finished and she refilled the teapot. George noticed she seemed flushed. But why? Flushed with excitement, perhaps?
    " Is it possible? " he thought to himself.
    He knew that Dolly Bloom was a stickler for protocol and rule No.1 of the Pimlico Literary Appreciation Society was No Sex, meaning no hanky panky between members. Experience had taught them that little affairs led to petty jealousies and then people invariably took sides and the whole thing got nasty and the next thing you knew the Book Club was in group therapy and the whole sorry mess was a distraction to their literary discussions.
    But George was not visiting Dolly solely to enjoy her company over tea and biscuits. He needed to test the theory, as the American writer had suggested, that in the right time and place women like to be spanked, revelling in " the helpless display " of their bottoms.
    " Well " George thought to himself. " Dolly has more than enough in the display department. "
    The little fella, who cannot always be relied upon for support, has indicated it will play no part in the proceedings. George, however, is no quitter.
    It was time to assert his assertiveness.
    " Ahem, " he begins. " Dolly I have been meaning to speak to you about your behavior at Book Club. Do you really think it was fair to suggest to Mrs. Prenderghast that she was an illiterate dimwit simply because she seemed to be of the opinion that Michael Ondaatje's And No Birds Sang was an anthology of disappearing songbirds. And suggesting to Mr. Horowitz that he should stick to Readers Digest if the comparisons with Rousseau in William Boyd ' s True Confessions were beyond him, was, well, belittling. And, and, " his voice rose in timbre just a little, " to propose to club members that our next book should be Feuchtgebiete, knowing full well that it's totally concerned with the vaginal and other bodily secretions of a German talk show hostess and that during public readings women have actually fainted, was beyond the pale. For these transgressions you deserve to be soundly… "
    But Dolly was joyously and spontaneously ahead of him. Hoisting her considerable skirts she ran around to his side of the table and settled contentedly over his knee.
    " Dum, de dum dum, " she hummed.
    " Dolly! "
    " What? "
    " I can do without Beethoven's Fifth. "
    " Sorry, that's more Music Club than Book Club. Never mind. Spank when ready! "
    From his perspective at Ground Zero, Dolly's silk panties and the wobbling buttocks there assembled seemed to billow like the Teflon roof of a covered stadium, but George was not about to concede defeat.
    However, just as he was wondering where to begin, or indeed how to begin, he heard the faintest of cracks and then another louder this time and suddenly the Chippendale collapsed beneath them depositing George, Dolly and the splintered remains of antiquity in a heap together on the floor. George would reflect later that he felt like Jacques Cousteau in a close encounter with a beluga.
    Fortunately, nobody was hurt and they picked themselves up helpless with embarrassment