Witch Hunter. Willow Sears

and more giggles from the girls. Mimi didn’t know if this cōleī was a muscle or perhaps some kind of fat-busting cell of the digestive system, or indeed why its mention created such mirth. She rather suspected the girls were laughing at her wobbling bottom, now that she was beginning to struggle with the pace of the treadmill. Morgana remained uninterested in her, focusing instead on the importance of first mixing the basil with the clove before burning the candle exactly half-way down and adding three drops of wax to the potion. Mimi tried to listen but she was flagging and sure the treadmill was speeding up of its own accord. The witch’s list of unknown roots and leaves, and the odd ways they had to be added, all became too much for her to digest. However, the thought of losing weight just by drinking some herbal brews certainly seemed preferable to this enforced exercise.

      ‘You are slowing down.’

      Suddenly the witch’s voice was behind her, startlingly close. Mimi felt ridiculous that she was so jumpy and so apparently incapable of keeping up the gentlest of exercises. She started to put in more effort but decided she’d had enough humiliation for one day and announced that she wanted to stop. The splat on her backside was immediate, so unexpected and sharp it took a couple of seconds to register its sting. Mimi looked back in panic, forced to continue on the treadmill or go flying off the back into a graceless heap. The witch was holding a flat paddle made of black leather, conjured apparently from nowhere. She had smacked Mimi’s arse!

      ‘Stopping won’t get your hips any firmer! Do you want more?’

      Mimi didn’t know what to say. The sting had been sharp but the thought that she could be publicly beaten by this woman somehow seemed to outweigh the dread of pain. She redoubled her efforts in silence, but Morgana was not placated and stayed put, ready to deal more blows of encouragement. It seemed ridiculous. First there was talk of weight-loss by drinking potions, now exercise enforced by flogging. Mimi started to pipe up but as soon as she did another slap landed and she was ordered to concentrate. This second blow was worse. Not because it was sharper, but because Mimi had squealed at the impact. Not screeched or shouted, but squealed, like she had enjoyed it.

      Her legs were spent now and she wanted to turn and tell the witch to leave her alone, but her head was jumbled and her face was burning with the exertion and the embarrassment of her situation. She couldn’t get off with any dignity unless the machine was first stopped for her, so she just had to go on. It quickly became a cycle: trying to keep up, then flagging, then getting a cheek-wobbling smack that enlivened her again. She was being spanked, genuinely, for the first time in her life.

      It was terrible and the panic was rushing through her, but her puss was getting so, so hot. She had the sudden thought that the woman had somehow read her mind, seen her fantasy of being beaten upon the bum. As Mimi sobbed and gibbered the girls openly laughed. The pace seemed to be getting faster all the time, although no one was touching the machine. Her leg muscles were burning as much as her rump, but still she went on, desperate for it to stop but unable to make this happen, perhaps not even wanting it to end.

      She was on the point of collapse but the slaps were coming one after another, across both cheeks, driving her on. The pain was almost indiscernible now that her bottom was so numb, but the heat between her legs was ever more noticeable. She was so het up that she thought for one terrible moment she was actually going to climax uncontrollably from her panic and humiliation, right there in front of the class. Then suddenly the treadmill was slowing to a stop. She got off it but still held onto it for support, bent forward with exhaustion.

      The tears were still on her flushed cheeks. Her mouth was open and a thin thread of viscous saliva was dangling from her lips. She was shaking. Her head wouldn’t clear and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t need to. The witch moved in to her, so close she felt the crotch at her throbbing bottom and the breasts squashing against her back. She felt an arm come around her waist, a sneaky move on the blind side of the girls, the hand slipping down to jam between her thighs. One finger buried itself in her crotch and pressed hard, magically finding her clit as it pulsed against the constraining denim. She almost collapsed but the woman held her up.

      She could feel breath in her ear. The witch was going to say something comforting to her, something loving. That’s what happened in her fantasies. Miss Morgana would whisper that it was all right to be turned on by torture and public sexual humiliation. She would say something to the watching girls that made this whole bizarre episode OK. She would absolve Mimi of any guilt, explaining the squeals as something other than the joy of being openly spanked.