When I joined the University, I got involved in Dramsoc and appeared in a few productions. One of the boys who was interested in me was called John, and – though I didn't appreciate it at the time – he was sensitive and intelligent.
We met because I was playing Tituba to his John Proctor in "The Crucible". Our affair went well while we were in the play together, but once the Christmas holidays came, I just sort of forgot about him.
By the second term, I'd become the secretary of the Dramsoc. Another student had agreed to direct a French play called "The Little Hut", which is about a woman cast away on a desert island with her lover and her husband; you get the general idea. It was quite a popular play at the time and had a long West End run. John was cast to play the husband but there was only the one female part and I wasn't cast. By this time anyway, I was more interested in the stage manager Dan, who was a more easy-going, rugby-playing type. John seemed kind of quiet by comparison.
Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately as it turned out – the girl who was directing the play got herself pregnant and left University in a bit of a hurry. Being secretary, I got lumbered with the chore of finishing the play off. I did so reluctantly, partly because it wasn't a play I liked much anyway and partly because it was a bit awkward between John and me.
Then I started playing John and Dan off against each other and, to cut a long story short, the two of them were having a great row one day when I arrived at rehearsals – and yes, I was the subject of the row. John had noticed me snogging with the stage manager in the wings of the theatre when I should have been directing the play. Well, it was such a tedious bloody play and at the time I thought Dan was a real dish.
The row ended with John being punched by Dan and the leading lady getting fed up with it all and walking out. John and I were hardly speaking by that time; he blamed me for the incident.
What really terrified me however was that it was the dress rehearsal – and I'd now no leading actress. I'd only just taken over as Dramsoc secretary and I wanted to show I could handle things. But nothing seemed to be going right with this play first losing the director and then the lead. There was nothing else I could do: I had to learn the lines double-quick and go on in the part myself without even a rehearsal, apart from going through a few of the moves. I had quite a good memory in those days and I was very familiar with the script by then.
One thing I haven't mentioned so far is that there is a spanking scene in the play. The woman dashes out of her hut to answer the phone and her husband puts her over his knee for playing around with the other man. This had always been acted in rehearsals very fast – twelve quick smacks, as indicated in the script.
* * *
When we got to the scene on the first night, John threw me over his knee as I was expecting. What I hadn't expected was how strange it would feel. I mean, think about it. There I was, the boss, in charge of the whole show and now a leading light in the Dramsoc – and now here I was, upended in front of around 150 people, with my sticky-out bum sticking up over the knees of an ex I was hardly speaking to. I knew he still found me attractive, and in the split-second as I lay there, I felt very vulnerable for I realised I was wearing a very flimsy costume a sort of bikini and pants: not a lot of protection against a heavy, avenging male palm.
The pause seemed a very long one. And then he brought his hand down, much harder than ever in rehearsals with the other woman. I yelped, kicked out my legs and bucked, but he held my body tightly. Suddenly I realised I was trapped. I had to take another 11 like that, and there were all these people watching and not making a sound. The entire audience seemed to be holding its breath, as well they might. I held my breath too, as I waited for the next one. Why didn't he get on with it? I could hear him breathing heavily.
The second slap was even harder and I yelled at the top of my voice; then another three very hard and very fast left me gasping for breath and hardly able to call out at all. John was counting the spanks out loud, as indicated in the script and yelled "Six!" in a tone of great triumph.
I then had a few words to say, though my bottom was hurting so much I could hardly find my voice. I had to say; "Ouch! That hurts!" which I was told afterwards (by someone who politely assumed I was acting) I said with great feeling.
John then had to reply something like: "That's the idea of it," and again he gave the line a new interpretation – kind of more thoughtful and determined than ever before.
What happened next took me – and everyone else – completely by surprise. In full view of the audience, he peeled my panties down to reveal my now-scarlet buttocks and continued belabouring them very hard and with great gusto.
He was supposed to give me only another six, but he went on and on. I twisted and wriggled and gasped and howled, but I couldn't got off his knees and he carried on until he reached 25. I was sobbing so hard that my Leichner Numbers Five and Nine were running down my face. Then he stood up and I rolled onto the stage, to a tremendous round of applause.
As I lay there in agony, rubbing my sore bottom, I suddenly realised I was turned on. I struggled to pull up my panties and hoped there wouldn't be a wet patch on them soon – or, if there were, that no one would be able to see it. I looked up at John from the stage floor and I remember the thought going through my mind: "He is quite nice-looking after all."
My backside was throbbing like mad, but somehow I managed to hobble to my feet... and immediately forgot my next line.
Hardly surprising, and I don't really know how I got through the performance. But it all seemed to be a great success and at the end, we got a standing ovation, so to speak.
Word soon got round the University, and there was a big demand at the box office and queues right round the block for returns: we could have sold the seats for the next performance many times over. My secretaryship of the Dramsoc had been a great success, but somehow it didn't seem to help my relationship with John. He slipped away after that first night and anyway we'd have both been too embarrassed to speak to each other.
But there was another aspect to all this that we'd forgotten about: there had been a local newspaper reporter at the performance. And the spanking scene – with panties on, of course – had in fact already been photographed by the paper before the performance. Early the next morning, reporters were trying to get in touch with me, but they couldn't because I wasn't on the phone and very few people knew my address, as I'd just changed digs. By the afternoon, the paper was published.
Normally a student production of a play that was already well known would have received only a short review, lucked away on an inside page. But not this show. All over the front page: "Spanking Success" was the headline, and the picture of me over John's knees was about as large as it could be, with the caption "Whipping Girl". There was no review at all; this was a news story. My acting counted for nothing but my bare bottom was suddenly the most famous smacked bottom in town.
And reporters may not have been able to find my address, but they knew where to find the Vice-Chancellor. He told them he'd be looking into the matter that day, but they quoted him as saying he'd get to the bottom of the matter. Ha bloody ha, very droll, I'm sure.
* * *
I was in a lecture when I received a note asking me to report to the Vice-Chancellor's office at 4pm that afternoon. Outside a couple of reporters from national papers were waiting for me. What had happened was that the local reporter had sold the story on to them, I refused to say anything, but realised my bare bottom was now about to become the most famous smacked bottom in the country.
I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I walked to the Vice-Chancellor's office. This after all was the sixties and in those days, a bit of spanking may have been all right, but nudity on stage? People talk now about the Swinging Sixties, but forget that they didn't swing as much as all that; there was a lot of stuffiness around, and at that time there was still a Lord Chamberlain censoring plays. I'd worked so hard to get into that University and I was about to be sent down in the most public and humiliating way imaginable! I remember thinking: 'My career is over and it's hardly begun.'
When I got to the Vice-Chancellor's door, John was there as well. I was furious with him. After all, he was the one who'd pulled my panties down on stage. But before I could tell him what I thought of him, the door opened and we were ushered into The Presence.
The Vice-Chancellor had the local paper in front of him and he started off by giving us a good talking-to: dragging the good name of the University into the mud and all that sort of thing. Suddenly John interrupted: 'It's really not June's fault,' he said. 'We didn't rehearse the scene like that. She didn't know I was going to pull her panties down. It was my idea entirely.'
There was a long pause, and I recall the Vice-Chancellor putting his pen down.
'I see,' he said. 'So you take full responsibility for the incident?'
John muttered: 'Yes.'
'In that case, Miss Roberts,' said the Vice-Chancellor, smiling a little grimly, I thought, 'I need detain you no longer. You may go.'
I was so relieved. I managed to say thank you and walked towards the door, but as I looked back, I caught sight of John's face. I couldn't leave him like that. His career was at stake as well; his family wasn't as rich as mine and he'd have completely lost his opportunity in life.
I told the Vice-Chancellor it was my fault too, that I'd been a bitch, that I'd driven him to it and treated him badly and I was really sorry. I pleaded with him to let John off.
This time there was an even longer pause. The Vice-Chancellor got up from his desk, turned his back on us and looked out of the window, obviously trying to decide what to do.
He said he was impressed by the way we'd each tried to shoulder the blame and protect the other, but, he said, he regretted he would have to impose some disciplinary action.
'Mr Smith,' he said. (Smith isn't his real name, but you don't expect it to be, do you?) 'I will give you a verbal warning,' and he then proceeded to give him a right roasting, which I won't bore you with.
When he'd finished, he looked straight at me, but he spoke to John. 'Mr Smith,' he went on. 'Whenever I've had a problem like this, I've usually used a hairbrush. An ebony one, fairly heavy, is best, I find. Do you have one like that?'
'I don't think so.'
'But you could find one?'
'I suppose I could.'
'Good.' He smiled properly for the first time. 'I should think twelve, well laid on, will be enough. Good afternoon.'
We were about to go out, when he added: 'Oh and – in private, of course. Definitely not on stage.'
We walked away in silence. Then John said he'd see me home, and I agreed, but we still couldn't find the words. Outside my flat, he blurted out: 'Look, we don't have to do what he said. He'd never know. I'm sorry; it really was my fault, not yours.'
I looked at him straight in the eyes. 'I do have a fairly heavy ebony hairbrush, in fact,' I said. 'Come in.'
I'm afraid the audience that night must have felt very shortchanged. No naked rump, and only a very perfunctory spanking, for John knew my bottom was still very sore from the hairbrushing. The punishment had taken a long time, because after almost every stroke, I had leapt up and done a sort of dance around the floor on one leg. Each time it was ages before I could pluck up the courage to place myself over his knee again.
And John didn't spare me with that hairbrush: he laid every stroke on as hard as he could. And as the hairbrush fell down on my naked, unprotected rear, I fell deeper and deeper in love with him.
